


Garbage Can Playlist

by little_murmaider



Category: Metalocalypse
Genre: Apocalypse, Break Up, Characters Watching Disney Movies, Excessive melodramatic weeping, Fwiendship, Gen, M/M, MAJOR GORE, Major character death - Freeform, Mild Gore, Mild Sexual Content, One Shot Collection, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Post-Doomstar Requiem, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-04
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2018-09-06 10:03:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 39
Words: 22,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8745925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/little_murmaider/pseuds/little_murmaider
Summary: A collection of stories inspired by some decidedly unmetal songs.





	1. Cry by Carly Rae Jepsen [Skwisgaar/Toki]

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't want to flood the page with a million little stories of varying length, so I'll just stick them all here! This story in particular is a [kinda-sorta expansion of a ficlet by turnip_girl](http://i-hates-you.livejournal.com/222607.html). I only recently discovered her work, and it is so excellent.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Toki says he wants to end things, Skwisgaar is surprised by how blindsided he feels.

_I never really know when he’ll be leaving. And even with hello I hear goodbye._  
  
When Toki says he wants to end things, Skwisgaar is shocked how blindsided he feels. After all, when they first hooked up, Skwisgaar insisted on keeping it casual. Light and polite. Strictly dickly. No sleepovers. No touching unrelated to foreplay. No feelings. Skwisgaar set the rules, and he adhered to them. The change had done wonders for their band relationship, draining all tension that would otherwise manifest as a screaming match. It was the ideal dynamic. For the most part.  
  
Sure, sometimes he was disappointed to wake and not to find another body beside him. Sure, some of their post-orgasm affection bled into sexually-adjacent activity. And sure, sometimes just being in the same room as Toki filled him with this weird warmth that made him sort of light-headed and giggly.  
  
But none of that was serious. This is what he wanted. It had to be. Why else would he enforce it?  
  
“Toki just dont’s t’ink dis ams sustainables,” he says. “Dis whole you-know-whats-it-pal-arounds we beens doing, somet’ing gots to gives. Yous my best friends, Skwisgaar, and I doesn’t wants to jeopardize dats by getting confused.”  
  
“Confused?”  
  
They’re in Skwisgaar’s room. Skwisgaar, having anticipated this encounter going in a _very_ different direction, is shirtless, jeans unbuttoned and fly down. Toki worries at his lower lip. He scans Skwisgaar’s face, but does not meet his eyes.  
  
“We was nevers supposed to makes dis more dans it was. Dis,” he gestures between them, “always hads an eggs-peer-a-shun dates. You makes dat clear.”  
  
He’s alarmed by the brute force of his loneliness. Two-plus decades quashing his abandonment issues and welp, here they are, rushing back all at once. Toki tugs at the hem of his shirt.  
  
“We cans just goes back to being regular pals, ja?” He smiles, lopsided, absent of joy. “Clean breaks. So, uh, good talks. Gonna heads outs nows. Sees you arounds, I guess.”  
  
He turns to leave. Skwisgaar’s chest swells with something dense and unknown, something that wipes his brain of every thought but one. **_Stay_**.  
  
He catches Toki’s wrist, the words out of his mouth before even forming in his head.  
  
“Don’ts leave.”  
  
“I really gots to gets outs of heres, so…” He glances over his shoulder. His expression softens. “Skwisgaar, ams you crying?”  
  
It takes him a moment to realize yes, he is.  
  
“Please don’ts leave mes.” The magnitude of his need swallows him, shunts aside anything resembling pride or self preservation. His grip must be tight; Toki winces when he reaches for his other hand. His breath hitches in his throat.  
  
“I don’ts understands,” Toki says, his voice flickering with annoyance. He tries to break free, but Skwisgaar restrains him. “You was de ones what says we gots to keeps it casual!”  
  
“I was wrongs.” His resolve is a thin sheath of ice–-fragile, easily crushed underfoot. “I was so wrongs. **Toki**. I says I wants to keeps dis likes dis, but I don’ts wants dat. I don’ts wants dat. I wants yous. I’m sorries. Please don’ts leave mes.”  
  
He’s beyond the event horizon of humiliation, which is good, because otherwise he might disintegrate with embarrassment. He doesn’t recognize himself, this pathetic, blubbering mess. Toki doesn’t recognize him, either, judging from his panicked, bewildered expression.  
  
“I can’ts…I needs you, please…don’ts…” He can’t even form _words_ anymore, just a babbling plea of desperation. His legs give out and he’s actually on his knees, _begging_ , BEGGING Toki to stay, his body decimated with sobs and his hands too weak to hold him and he’s so afraid to be alone and he can’t, he _can’t_ do it. He slumps against Toki’s shin.  
  
“Hey.” Toki slips to the floor and guides him into his chest. “Comes here.”  
  
He gathers Skwisgaar in his arms, his legs encircling him like a nest. Skwisgaar sinks completely into the embrace, a quivering little creature. Toki kisses the top of his head, rubs the space between his shoulder blades. He can’t remember the last time he cried like this. Maybe when he was a child. Maybe to his mom.  
  
“I didn’ts t’ink you would reacts dis way.” His voice is gentle as his touch.  
  
“Ja, wells, dat makes two ofs us.”  
  
Toki’s chuckle stirs Skwisgaar’s hair.  
  
“Why didn’ts you tells me sooner?”  
  
He shakes his head into Toki’s pec, hiccuping. “I didn’ts wants to…makes it weirds? If you didn’ts wants dis?”  
  
Toki hums, then laughs. Then he keeps laughing. He laughs so much that Skwisgaar feels pretty damn _insulted_. He rocks back onto his heels, glowering.  
  
“You t’ink dat ams funny?”  
  
“Noes, noes!” His smile disarms Skwisgaar. He takes his face in both hands, thumbs away tears on each cheek. “It just, dats why I tried to ends it! Cause I couldn’ts keeps pretendings I don’ts feels dis way abouts yous.”  
  
Skwisgaar shifts, the corner of his mouth grazing Toki’s palm. “How you feels abouts me?”  
  
Toki tilts his head to one side and looks at him like he’s the biggest fucking moron in the universe. “Come ons, Skwisgaar.”  
  
Skwisgaar nestles into Toki’s shoulder, presses his lips to his neck.  
  
“I guess if we gonnaaaaaaa…”  
  
“…beeeeeeees in a relationships?” Toki finishes, raising his eyebrows. Skwisgaar grins.  
  
“Ja. We should probably gets better at…saysing…words…to each overs.”  
  
“Wells, in the interests of open communications,” deviousness darkens his smile, “you ams a really ugly criers.”  
  
He snorts. “Shuts up.”  
  
“Likes, wowee, I thoughts it was impossibles for yous to nots look hots.”  
  
“I ams always hots. It ams my cross to bares.”  
  
“Nots de case!”  
  
“Pfft.”  
  
“My littles Swedish snot monsters.”  
  
“I’ll show _yous_ snot monsters.” He smears his nose against the first patch of skin he finds. Toki howls.


	2. One More Time With Feeling by Regina Spektor [General, Dethklok]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the aftermath of his rescue, Toki feels crushed by his own incompetence.

_You thought by now you’d be so much better than you are. You thought by now they’d see that you have come so far. And the pride inside their eyes would synchronize into a love you’ve never known. So much more than you’ve been shown._  
  
The guys will not leave Toki’s hospital room. He did not ask for this. After so much time in isolation, it astounds him how badly he wants to be left alone. He’s hazy on the rescue, and would be content to leave it at that. The guys do not know this; Pickles recaps the events with an exuberance usually reserved for a particularly-stacked groupie or a difficult-to-obtain drug. Every detail sows a renewed sense of ineptitude within Toki, unearths dazzling new failures.  
  
“Dood, it was _CRAZY_! Theet guy was like, eh eh eh--” he stabs a fist into the air “--and then it was like, nyeeeehhhhh, and it was like,” he makes an explosion noise with his mouth and kicks at nothing. He vibrates with excitement, his eyes shining with a manic gleam. The others look considerably worse for wear; Nathan clutches an industrial-size cup of coffee, Skwisgaar’s eyes are bloodshot and Murderface’s wrist is heavily bandaged. He pinches the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger.  
  
“Picklesh, can you pleashe schow a senshe of decorum. Thish ish a plache of _death_ and _diseasch_ , and your enthuschiasm ish really weirding me out.”  
  
“I ceen’t help it, man!” Pickles bounces from foot-to-foot, shaking out his wrists like he’s about to bolt into a full-on sprint. “I’m still hyped as _SHIT_ from theet supernat’ral Dethlight whatever! Do you guys naht feel thet anymore? I feel like I could punt _a fucking car._ ”  
  
“Yeah, well, I crashed pretty hard when I realized two of my friends almost died,” Nathan says. He turns a bleary gaze on Toki. “Good job, by the way, not dying. Cause if you died I would have…killed...you.”  
  
Pickles latches onto the radiator, plants a foot on the wall for leverage and strains as he leans backwards.  
  
“I’m gonna rip this _riiiiiight outta tha fuCKIIIIIING WAAAA **AAAAALL**_ okay no I’m naht. But I feel like I could.”  
  
Murderface sighs. When the sound doesn’t garner the attention of everyone in the room, he sighs again, more belabored and exacerbated than the last. He actually sighs _too_ hard; his breath devolves into a wheeze and he chokes on it.  
  
“You got something you wanna say, pal?” Nathan asks when Murderface’s coughing subsides.  
  
“Yeah, fellasch, I hate to bring thish back to _me_ , but we’ve schpent a lot of time dischusshing everyone elsche’sh heroicss that we haven’t had time to focush on mine?”  
  
“Probably because all you did was try to convince us to turn back.”  
  
“What?! Nathan I’m offended, I am _offended_ you would diminish my _schignificant contributionsh_! I wasch the one who remembered the Depthsch of Humanity wasch where Toki played his first gig!”  
  
“That wasn’t you, that was _Pickles_.”  
  
“Yeeh!” Pickles rips a framed watercolor painting off the wall and throws it on the ground, shattering it.  
  
“Well, then, how about I was the only one of you douchebagsh who kept my schit together and found the clue that figured out where Toki wasch being kept?”  
  
“Once again _not you_ , that was _Skwisgaar_.”  
  
Skwisgaar, quick to accept praise whether earned or unearned, is quiet. His arms are crossed over his chest; his hands grip his biceps so tightly a trail of red mars the skin.  
  
“Oh, right, right. Well, did I not keep Toki grounded with unparalleled schupport and friendschip through even his darkest days?”  
  
“Are you seriously trying to take credit for what _**Abigail**_ did? Seriously?” Nathan set down his coffee and starts toward Murderface. “I’m going to punch you in the kidney.”  
  
“HEY HEY no need to get crazy! The point ish, we all contributed meaningfully to the reschcue.”  
  
“No, the point is **we** did all the work, and **as usual** _**you**_ lagged behind and complained like an asshole.”  
  
“Greats, supers, I gets it, alrights?!” Toki shouts. “You ams all bigs important cool guys, and Toki ams just a stupid, useless, weak little babies.”  
  
Fuck, his voice cracks. There was a time a certain tone in his voice would give his bandmates pause, when they’d look at him like he wouldn’t hesitate to rip their throats out with his bare hands. He hated those looks, but he’d sell his soul to see them now. Anything is preferable to the wide-eyed, pitying stares he gets lately. They make him feel like nothing, a sentient trash heap that requires constant vigilance. He drops his face in his hands. Couldn’t keep his cool for one fucking minute. He really _is_ useless.  
  
The foot of his bed sinks as weight is introduced. Nathan raps his knuckles against Toki’s shin and Toki peers out from between his fingers.  
  
“Hey. We don’t think you’re weak.”  
  
Toki scoffs. “You don’ts has to lie to mes.”  
  
Nathan covers both of Toki’s wrists in one massive hand and pushes them into his lap. Unencumbered, Toki is left exposed to the gale force of _sympathy_ and _tenderness_ and Christ he should have died when he had the chance. Though, scanning his bandmates’ expressions now, he sees less pity and more disbelief. He shifts back into his pillows.  
  
“Toki. You’re stronger than _all of us_.”  
  
He rolls his eyes. If that wasn’t the biggest, smelliest, most maggot-infested load of shit he’d ever heard in his life--  
  
“Dood, d’ya really think any of us woulda lasted in theet pit?” Pickles interrupts. “My withdrawal woulda killed me before theet metal faced doochebeeg got a shot.”  
  
“No way I wouldn’t have truschted you dickweedsh to come after me. Firscht scharp object I could find,” Murderface stabs his empty fist into his throat, “bam, jugular, bleed out, dead.”  
  
Skwisgaar clears his throat. When he speaks, his voice is reedy and thin.  
  
“I, uh, has been, perhaps, a little bits emotional?”  
  
Pickles smirks. “Pssh, nice undersell there, man.”  
  
“Whats?”  
  
“Ya’ve been a fuckin’ wreck ever since we got back.”  
  
Skwisgaar’s entire body clenches. “No I hasn’t!”  
  
“Non-stop cry factory, over here. And business is _boomin’_.”  
  
“Oh, come ons,” he says, eyes welling, “dat’s not, _dat’s_ not trues.”  
  
“Honeschtly, Schkishgaar, making you cry hasch become scho unfairly _easchy_. I barely take any pleaschure in it anymore.”  
  
“Still get some pleasure outta it, though.”  
  
“Oh, yeah, of coursche. Hey Schkwishgaar, _Toki almost died_.”  
  
Skwisgaar immediately erupts into sobs, yanking the collar of his shirt up to conceal his face. “ _ **YOU GUY AMS FUCKING DICKS**_.”  
  
“Toki,” Nathan says. “Do you get what we’re saying.”  
  
“Nots...really, to bes honest.”  
  
“What we’re saying is, **none** of us,” his arm sweeps around the room, “could have done what you did.”  
  
Self-loathing floods his chest once more. “What, bes dumb enoughs to gets tricked and kidnappeds by a psychopath?”  
  
“ _ **Survive.**_ ”  
  
The word knocks the wind out of him. All his life, he’d thought his ability to sustain existence despite the universe’s best efforts was a burden. Maybe he framed it wrong. Maybe this ability wasn’t a malignant blight meant to prolong his suffering. Maybe it was power.  
  
He takes in the sight of his friends, here, in this room, with him. For the first time since he’s been home, he smiles.


	3. New Kid in Town by The Eagles [Magnus]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With no band, no income, no discernible skill, Magnus weighs his options.

_You’re walking away and they’re talking behind you. They will never forget you til somebody new comes along._

He doesn’t know how to fix this.  
  
_This_ , in the short term: his eye, which he knows he’ll never see out of again. _This_ , in the long run: his career, his living situation, his future. The _this_ -es dovetail into an immediate, concrete problem--he doesn’t know what kind of financial straits he’s going to be in come morning, and he needs medical attention. So instead of going to an actual hospital, he goes to the free clinic, the one six blocks north of their terrible apartment, the one he used to raid for condoms (and, on more than one occasion, penicillin). It’s late, and the only girl on staff is an intern, a med student. When she pulls back his blood-soaked hair to examine the damage, she vomits all over herself. She admits she’s only done this sort of thing on a corpse. It’s all downhill from there.  
  
Afterwards, he swings by the apartment to pick up his things. He figures the band pissed on or otherwise desecrated most of his possessions. He’s not wrong. His belongings are in garbage bags on the curb out front. It’s obvious everything was hurled down from the outdoor landing on the second floor; jeans and old t-shirts bulge through tears in the cheap plastic. (His guitar, however, lays on the pavement untouched. Skwisgaar may hate the player, but he can’t disrespect the instrument.)  
  
The gauze is tight and scratchy against his face. He hadn’t thought through how he would carry everything, or where he was supposed to go once he got it. Of course both of these things are Dethklok’s fault. In the aftermath of the attack, his need to treat his injury eclipsed all other emotions. Now, his rage churns to a froth, bubbles out from beneath his nail beds. The idiots kicked him out before taking his key so it’s not exactly difficult to get back in. He thinks about killing something. Like _really_ killing something, leaving the living room littered with rat corpses. That’s a little dark, plus he doesn’t have that kind of time. Instead he finds the can of red spray paint Nathan used to tag the front of the apartment. When he finishes crafting his message, he carves a petty path to the exit, trashing anything within arms reach. He swipes a dimebag off the coffee table, puts his heel through it and gets out.  
  
_Revenge is coming_ \--he doesn’t even know what he means by it. He just wants to scare them. He wants to haunt them, if he’s being honest. He enamored with the idea, of hanging over them specter-like, shrouding them in paranoia until the end of days. It's a comfort. If they take everything else from him, at least they can't take that.  
  
He takes up residence at a fleabag motel on the bad side of an already shitty town. It’s not the first time he’s been kicked out of a band. Hell, it’s not the first time he’s been kicked out of a band after getting his ass beaten. But this one stings. He’d been through so many bands, so many break ups, this was going to be the one that stuck. After decades of clawing his way out of mediocrity he was finally going to get the recognition he so richly deserved. Now those ambitions choked him, filled his mouth with the taste of copper. His eye is mostly scabbed over by the time Charles finds him. Charles always managed to find him.  
  
Charles regards him coolly, holding a thick parcel of papers in the crook of his arm. He wears a sharp suit and new glasses. It’s a striking contrast to him, the bare-chested wash-out with old blood dried to his temple. He might feel an inkling of shame if it were anyone else, but it’s Charles. Charles knows him. He knows Charles, too, as well as anyone can know Charles. To truly know Charles is to accept a piece of him will always be unknowable.  
  
Charles spouts out a lot of nerd words like _breech of contract_ and _termination of services_ and _litigation_ and _restraining order_. He lights up another joint and offers Charles a drag. Charles tosses the papers on the bed and tells him to peruse at his leisure, then turns to go.  
  
"What was the point of this, man?" he asks. "You didn't need to drive all the way down here to tell me I'm out. I know I'm out. Why bother?"  
  
Charles lingers at the doorframe, but does not face him.

  
"Because you're never going to have this kind of opportunity again," he answers. "I thought I owed you this much."  
  
The lock clicks shut behind him.  
  
He allows himself another week of searing self loathing before he starts making moves. He’s not worried about finding work (he’s always been a scrapper) but he’d have to lay low for a while. The death metal scene in this town is a small one, and the rumor mill has already make him out to be some kind of monster. He’s not that guy. He’ll skip town, pick up something small. Weigh his options. Then the real work begins.


	4. How by Regina Spektor [Skwisgaar/Toki]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skwisgaar and Toki’s morning routine was always the same, until it wasn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another expanded Tumblr request! One of these days I will run out of steam on Skwisgaar Doomstar angst. That day is not today.

_To hear your voice, to see your face. There's not one moment I'd erase. You are a guest here now._  
  
Toki always woke first. Their mornings followed the same routine, a caricature of domesticity. A creature of habit, Toki rose before sunrise, climbing back into bed after a work-out and a shower. The movement roused Skwisgaar, but he had little trouble slipping back into sleep. It wasn't Toki's undelicate shifting that stirred him; it was the waft of fresh, clean air. When Skwisgaar would awaken, hours later, he found Toki in the same spot: always hovering above him, chin in hand, with the same, moonstruck expression.   
  
“Why you looks at me likes dat?” Skwisgaar asked once. “You gots some kinds of fetish whats you likes to watch peoples whiles dey asleeps, you weirdo?”  
  
Toki snickered as he scooted in closer. “I don’ts likes watching you _sleeps_. I likes watching you _wakes up_.”

“Dats still pretty weirds.”

“Ams not!”  
  
The morning sun lit Toki from behind, illuminating fibers of his hair in a messy glow. Only when they were this close did Skwisgaar see the faint sweep of freckles running across Toki’s nose, the flecks of green in his eyes.  
  
“Most ofs de times, you looks so _serious_ , likes dis,” He hardened his face into an exaggerated scowl. Skwisgaar scoffed. “Buts whens you just wakes up, you look so...soft. You opens your eyes real slow and blinks a lot, likes you a little tiny baby deers. It’s cutes.”

“Fuck yous, I ain’ts cutes.”

“Yes you _aaaaammmmmms_ ,” Toki cooed.

“No I _ain’ts!_  Devastatingly handsomes, perhaps.”

Toki’s giggles rattled against his sternum as he pressed kisses into his jaw.

“You’re _cuuuuuutes_ , you gots to accept de facts you _cuuuuuuutes_ , you fuck nuggets.”

Skwisgaar guided Toki’s mouth to his own. Their kisses were lax, light, untethered. After a time Toki pulled away. His smile, toothy and sincere, diminished. His thumb brushed Skwisgaar’s cheekbone.

“You gots to gets up, pals.”  
  
“Okays, buts, counteroffer, we just lives in dis beds, forever.”

Toki moved in again; his lips grazed Skwisgaar’s as he spoke.

“Gets up, Skwisgaar.”

His voice deepened, gravelly and tinged with frustration.  
  
“Times to gets up, Skwisgaar.”

He clutched Skwisgaar’s shoulders, echoing the demand. With each repetition his actions grew more aggressive, more forceful. His features bled into something opaque.  
  
“Toki, whats de fucks–”

“Gets up, Skwisgaar!” He slapped him. His face flickered, for a moment recognizable but then returning to murkiness. Skwisgaar reached for it, seeking something familiar, but his fingers slid through the visage like water.   
  
“Skwisgaar **wake the fuck up.”**

The face snapped into focus, but it wasn’t Toki; it was Nathan. The air was stale, heady with the scent of unwashed hair. Light cut through the blinds, dull as oxidizing copper. Skwisgaar’s bed seemed suddenly expansive, a vast glimmering tundra that stretched unyielding in all directions. He touched Nathan’s chest, then the empty space beside him.

“Where ams he?” he murmured. Nathan’s tight grip slackened.

“Where’s…” he trailed off. He held the back of his hand to Skwisgaar’s forehead. “You’ve been in here for almost a week. Time to rejoin the living.”

“Buts he was _heres.”_ He ran his hand across the cool sheets for some shred of evidence. Flakes of his skin. Strands of his hair. The bed dipped as Nathan sat. 

“Buddy, nobody’s been in here in four days.”

Despair cratered Skwisgaar. The reality of his dreams dissipated in the light of day. Toki was gone.

Nathan’s grip pulsed against the bend of Skwisgaar’s elbow, a warning, then dragged him to his feet. Once upright, he allowed himself to be maneuvered into the bathroom.

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” Nathan said. “You’re starting to look like one of those oil-covered baby ducks in the ASPCA commercials.”

The hiss of the shower startled him. The rush of water flowed hot from the first spigot, the second, then the third. Nathan held him steady beneath the stream, releasing when he was sure he would stand on his own, then walked backwards to the toilet.

“I’m just gonna hang back and make sure you don’t drown, alright?" he grumbled as he sat. "I need you to continue to be alive.”

The water riveted down his spine, his legs, eked between his toes. Skwisgaar sought constants to anchor him to the present moment. The cold tile against his forehead. The numbing patter of water along his back. The soapy spiral at his feet, slowly circling the drain.


	5. Roses by Carly Rae Jepsen [Rose Explosion and Serveta Skwigelf]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose and Serveta share a few drinks. They've shared a few other things, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's another Tumblr request! I promise I listen to other artists besides Regina Spektor and Carly Rae Jepsen. I also listen to Beyoncé.

  
_Said it before, and I’ll say it again. That I’ll always be here, when you need a friend._

Serveta cackled as she topped herself off, rosé splashing onto the lush carpet. She and the other Dethklok moms were visiting, sequestered in Mordhaus’s lavish Visitors’ Wing. (It occurred to Serveta that such a wing did not exist the _last_  time they visited. But she wasn’t going to object to being quarantined in the equivalent of a five-star resort, drowning in top shelf liquor.)       
  
Molly, Stella and Anja had long ago called it a night. Rose and Serveta continued to hit the sauce, trading laughs and their craziest hook-up stories. Serveta fucked circles around the other moms, of course. But Rose had quite the wild streak before she settled down with Oscar in the Florida muck. Serveta fancied she was doing Rose a great service, allowing her to recount her glory days free of judgement. In some ways, she was a hero.  
  
“You know what I just realized?” Rose said, popping open another wine cooler. Serveta raised her glass to her lips.   
  
“What ams dat?”  

Rose took a long pull from her bottle. She exhaled, wiped the corner of her mouth with her thumb. When she spoke, her voice was polite, yet even.  
  
“ _Both_  of us have slept with Oscar.”  
  
Serveta hesitated. She adjusted her dress, suddenly feeling she bore too much skin. After her first tryst with Oscar, he insisted his marriage was open. Serveta was wary of such claims–she’d sprinted half-nude out of too many bedrooms not to be. But she believed him. Why wouldn’t she, when Rose showed her nothing but warmth? Had it just been a long con? Nerves prickled the back of her neck.  
  
A smile eked across Rose’s mouth, threatening to break through the edges of her face. She giggled, the sound building into a full belly laugh. Serveta laughed, too, confused but relieved.

“Your _face_ ,” Rose wheezed.   
  
“Yous ehhhh really hads me, goingks, dere.”  
  
“Did he do that thing with you, when he–” she made a fist and punched the open palm of her opposite hand in rapid succession. Serveta squealed.  
  
“Oh my _Gods_  ja! It like beingks banged wifs a jackhammers. I couldn’ts walk straight fors a week.”

“Try taking _that_  for 37 years!”

“Why do’s he t’inks dat am sexy?”

“I don’t _know_!”  
  
Shaking from their shared, breathy laughter, they both leaned forward, and clinked glasses.


	6. It Was a Very Good Year by Frank Sinatra [Pickles]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pickles doesn't miss his Snakes N' Barrels days. Not totally.

_And now I think of my life as vintage wine from fine old kegs._  
  
There were precious few ages he wished to revisit less than his early twenties. (His teens were no picnic, either, but at least then he had regular access to an Atari.) He didn’t miss LA. He didn’t even miss the Snakes N’ Barrels guys, if he was being honest. What he did miss was one single instant, crisp as a Polaroid in his brain.  
  
The tour bus air was stale. Endless fields of dry corn stalks swarmed past the windows. Bullets made up a game: Pickles didn’t remember the rules, but he remembered laughing so hard he collapsed, clambering for his inhaler. As he laid on the floor wheezing, Tony stretched, the ball of his foot pressing softly into Pickles’s calf. In that moment, for the first and only time, he felt home.  
  
He sought that feeling elsewhere–on other tours, with other bands, at the bottom of other bottles. He’d yet to find it. But maybe he would. He had time.


	7. Fooled Around and Fell in Love by Elvis Bishop [Skwisgaar/Toki]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skwisgaar's heart was a wasteland. But Toki still found a way in.

_Free, on my own is the way I used to be. But since I met you baby, love’s got a hold on me._  
  
Skwisgaar’s heart was a wasteland. Hard, desolate, too barren for anything to take root. But Toki rutted his fingers into the rotten earth, dug until he discovered, deep beneath the surface, a patch of rich, dark soil. Planted something. Coaxed it to sprout.  
  
They stood on the rooftop, the hum of an unknown city throbbing beneath them. Toki peered over the edge. Neon lights illuminated his hair in yellows and greens. Skwisgaar slipped behind him, wrapped his arms around his waist and braced.  
  
“Whaaaaaats?” Toki asked, a teasing lilt, the one he affected whenever Skwisgaar displayed even a modicum of affection. A tone he’d been using a lot more, lately.  
  
“Shuts up,” Skwisgaar rested his cheek on the top of his head. “Lets me does dis.”  
  
“ _Hmmm_ ,” was all he said. The world glittered at their feet. Toki’s hand glided down Skwisgaar’s forearm. Landed on his fingers. Squeezed.


	8. Hand in Glove by The Smiths [Nathan/Skwisgaar]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nathan and Skwisgaar understand each other.

_The good life is out there somewhere, so stay on my arm, you little charmer._  
  
When Skwisgaar first came on he didn’t talk much. Pickles thought he was self-conscious of his English. Magnus thought he was an idiot. Murderface thought he was a stuck-up prick. But he and Nathan understood each other. They shared the language of silence. A quirked eyebrow, the barest lilt of a smile spoke volumes. During a lull in rehearsal, Skwisgaar craned his neck so his hair caught the sun like a net, and Nathan’s heart swelled against his ribs.  
  
Skwisgaar often vanished after shows. returning whenever and with whomever he pleased. That night he came home, alone, drunk. He crawled into Nathan’s bed and laid his cheek on his bicep, kept his hands pressed between his thighs. Nathan’s hand settled on the bony curve of Skwisgaar’s hip. Another language they shared.


	9. Michael Myers Resplendent by The Mountain Goats [Magnus]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Magnus has his reasons for working at Rock-a-Rooni Fantasy Camp.

_I am ready for my close up today. Too long I’ve let my self-respect stand in my way._  
  
The truth was he didn’t sign up to counsel at Rock-a-Rooni Fantasy Camp for the money. He was fine on money. Even if he wasn’t, spending a week in Deliverance County teaching sweaty losers the Three Chords of Pop Music was not a fair trade off. No, the truth was much more humiliating. The truth was he wanted to feel admired again. Even if it came from a bunch of beady-eyed, pock-faced mouth breathers.  
  
He had this--he wouldn’t call it a _fantasy_ , that was a bit extreme. Just a thought bubble that surfaced before bed, helped him fall asleep. He stands centerstage before a crowd of thousands. His hair flutters around his shoulders, the spotlight coaxing beads of sweat out of his skin and down his spine. Nathan bellows his name. A spark ignites in his chest. The crowd erupts.  
  
The stage at camp is small, the crowd sparse. But as he leads that first lesson, basks the rapt gazes of a half-dozen wannabes, he feels it again, that spark. It’s dull, and quiet, but it’s there.


	10. Bedroom Hymms by Florence + The Machine [Skwisgaar/Toki]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Toki, religion takes on a new meaning.

_ This is as good a place to fall as any, we’ll build our alter here. Make me your Maria. I’m already on my knees. _

The church of Toki’s youth was sparse; a windowless, dour shack. Cold wind shook the old, warped walls, whistled low though the beams holding the roof aloft. His father delivered sermons in whispered reverence. Toki spent services with eyes downcast, counting the veins in the wood of the pew before him.

Iconography was considered blasphemous. Even still, Toki was captivated by the Catholics’ flare for the dramatic. The weeping marble Marys, the inviting red glow of stain glass Jesus’s open palms. When Skwisgaar laid beneath him his hair floated around his face in a glittering halo. His touch was communion, his orgasm salvation.  
  
  
If this is what it meant to be damned, so be it. 


	11. Badlands by Bruce Springsteen [Nathan/Magnus]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Magnus was always full of ideas.

_ Talk about a dream, try to make it real. You wake up in the night with a fear so real. You spend your life waiting for a moment that just won’t come. _

Afterwards, as sweat dried chalky against their skin, Magnus would talk about his _ideas_. Bombastic rock operas set in space; modern, orchestrated retellings of Greek myths. He had plans to craft an entire concept album centered around _The Art of War_.  
  
Which sounded great, really it did. The problem was, Magnus’s ambition outweighed his skillset. He was incapable of executing the complex, grandiose concepts he conceived. His hands moved sluggish along the fretboard, his lines basic and derivative. Skwisgaar often pulled Nathan aside to show him how much faster he was able to play, unmoored by Magnus’s songs. Nathan agreed. Their stuff should be faster, should be harder, should be more brutal. Magnus lacked something, and they would not be able to achieve artistic greatness with him at the helm.  
  
But Nathan did not tell him that. Could not tell him that. He just scratched at his lower back, mumbled, “That’s cool, dude.” Said nothing else.


	12. Naughty Girl by Beyoncé [Skwisgaar/Toki]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skwisgaar was pretty sure he had a reason to join Toki on the dance floor. If only he could remember what it was.

_ I don’t know what’s gotten into me. The rhythm’s got me feeling so crazy. _

Skwisgaar was 83 percent sure he had A Point when he sauntered onto the dance floor. Perhaps Toki’s corybantic gyrating triggered his one ups-manship. As a teen in Sweden he snuck into dance halls to troll for more seasoned hook-ups. Dancing was just another avenue for seduction; of course he was good at it. It just wasn’t a skill he demonstrated very often. But Toki looked like an absolute idiot out there. Maybe that’s why he wandered into the fray, to hunt down another venue to exercise complete and total superiority.

Whatever the reason, it flew out of his head as soon as he landed in Toki’s orbit. The song had such a heavy bass it pounded in his chest like a second heartbeat. He serpentined through the throngs of people, his body drawn to Toki as if by magnetic force. The rhythm rolled down his spine, his hips rocking into Toki’s. Worried the move was too much, he rotated back, only to be pulled in once more, a hand at the base of his spine keeping him close. With one hand tangled in long, soft hair, the other cupping a high and tight ass, he lost himself. Hot, vodka-scented breath warmed the skin surrounding his lips. He closed the gap without a second thought.

Only after a few minutes of light making out did he realize what the fuck was going on. 

“Does you gots a _ boner _ right nows,  _ you homo _ ?!” Toki brayed, face glowing with smug satisfaction.

“Whats? No? _You does_!” he replied, crossing his legs.  
  
Skwisgaar tried to reel back, to scamper off into an isolated corner and sulk until his arousal subsided. But Toki would not release his hold. His lips grazed Skwisgaar’s cheekbone as he spoke.  
  
“You wants I shoulds takes cares of dat?”  
  
Skwisgaar hesitated before responding. His gut response, of course, was _yes_. But this scenario had all the markings of a prank, fodder for a band-wide roasting until the end of days.  
  
Before he could suss out if the suggestion was sincere, Toki seized him by the belt buckle, grinning wolfishly, and tugged him towards the bathroom.


	13. Autoclave by The Mountain Goats [Skwisgaar/Toki]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skwisgaar and Toki had shared a bed before, but this time felt different. New.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally part of a longer story I've since lost interest in. I still like this part though! Meep morp.

_ I am this great, unstable mass of blood and foam.  _ _ And no emotion that’s worth having could make my heart it’s home.  _ _ My heart’s an autoclave. _

As they cross the threshold to Skwisgaar’s bedroom, they both hesitate. It was as through a tectonic plate had shifted beneath them, and they were left clutching each other, trying to find their footing.

The night of Toki’s rescue, as the four of them paced treads into the hospital’s waiting room tile, Pickles had asked if any of them felt different. Like all the ugly parts of them had been muted, replaced with something new. Something better. In this moment, Skwisgaar feels the blazing heat of all those new parts, searing and uncomfortable and satisfying. He sees this white hot newness in Toki, too. He wants to stick his hands in it, burn his fingerprints off.

When he touches Toki now, it’s not like any other time they’ve touched. This body that was once so familiar to him is now a tangible mystery. He reaches up to touch his face, but that feels too bold, so he touches the inside of his elbow. The skin is cool, slightly damp with sweat. Toki has similar reservations: he initially grazes Skwisgaar’s cheek, then withdraws as if shocked. His hand settles on Skwisgaar’s ribs, jutting and prominent from his position. He pretends they’re piano keys, taps out a melody only he can hear, giggles at his own joke. They stay like that for a while, experimentally exploring the new terrain.

He ghosts his fingertips over Toki’s bicep, running the length of the muscle down to the bend of his elbow, doubling back up to his shoulder. He tries to tell him like this, the only way he can say anything. He presses down on the raised veins of his forearm, wills the words into his fingers, a physical morse code.

Toki shifts, lets out a short breath through his nose. “Ams tickling mes.”

“Sorries.”

Toki’s gaze blasts craters through the back of Skwisgaar’s skull, but he can’t bring himself to meet it. Doesn’t know what will meet him there.

“Why comes you stares?” he finally asks.

“Yous just so pretty, how cans I nots?” He’s teasing–-an insult disguised as a compliment is a familiar tactic-–but beneath the bite is a flicker of something Skwisgaar can’t place. Something about the way he says the word “pretty.” Skwisgaar squeezes Toki’s bicep a hair above the point of pain. Releases. Outside, he hears the distant howl of the yard wolves, the faint shrieks of a Klokateer meeting his untimely demise.

“De worst dreams ams about yous,” Toki whispers. At this Skwisgaar does look up, but Toki’s gaze is roving. “I’ve seen you dies so many times, so many way. Dat first nights back, when you wake mes up, I sees you gets yous throat slit.”

He traces a line across Skwisgaar’s neck with his pointer finger, just above his Adam’s apple.

“Ams covers in yous blood. You tries to tell me somet’ing. Bloods come out yous eyes, yous ear, yous mouth.”

Without breaking contact from the skin Toki’s touch glides upwards, along the length of Skwisgaar’s jaw, settles hardened fingertips softly on Skwisgaar’s lips.

“Whens I wakes up I still t’inks I dreamings, dat yous dead. But it not reals. Yous alive.”

His eyes are trained on Skwisgaar’s mouth, his thumb finding the small dip in his chin.

“Dreams about yous, too,” he mumbles, then clears his throat. Some ancient leftover douchebag doesn’t want to give Toki the satisfaction of knowing what a sap he is. “Whens yous gones. De dreams makes me so happies, whens I wake up it feel likes…you knows about hows dey used to punish ladies whats dey thoughts was witches? How dey woulds puts dem under a bunch of rocks, so de ladies gets crushed? Dat how I feels.”

“How you feels now?”

He blinks. Drawing a sharp breath, he leans in close, tangling his hands in Toki’s hair. Why did he find this so impossible before? It’s the easiest thing he’s ever done. It’s playing a solo in front of 500,000 hysterical fans. It’s exhaling.

 

“I loves you.”

Toki lay motionless. Panic spiderwebs through Skwisgaar’s abdomen. Oh no. He tries to think of a way to spin this, to turn it against Toki, a wacky practical joke. He opens his mouth to backtrack, lay some groundwork for recovering his dignity. But then Toki’s hands are on his face and his mouth is on his mouth.

He kisses him like he’d never been kissed in his life. He kisses him like he’s dying of thirst and Toki is an endless stream of cool water. Skwisgaar always thought all those songs about love were the result of childish, lazy fantasies but oh God he gets it, he  _ gets it  _ now. He’s never felt more exhilarated, more terrified, more desperate, more alive. His body is a supernova, destroying all he was and recreating him into something resplendent, something deserving of feeling this way. He is nothing. He is everything. He loves Toki so much.

Toki is crying, ha ha, what a baby. Maybe they’re both crying. Who cares. It doesn’t matter.

Toki pulls away–it hadn’t even occurred to Skwisgaar they would eventually need to stop kissing–and straddles Skwisgaar’s hips. Skwisgaar leans up but Toki widens the distance, rocking back on his heels and wearing a lopsided grin.

“Says it again,” he says. He’s enjoying this, the little shit. Skwisgaar coils Toki’s hair around his fist, his fingers grazing the back of his skull.

“I loves you.”

“Says it again.”

Skwisgaar narrows his eyes. 

“I loves you.”

He tries to make it sound like an insult, like  _ how dumb am I, if I love you, you idiot _ , but his annoyance can’t make a dent in the words’ sincerity. Toki hovers over him, just out of reach. When Skwisgaar reaches for another kiss, Toki lays his arm across his chest, his forearm sitting heavily on Skwisgaar’s solar plexus.

“Says it again.”

“Fuck  _ YOUS _ .”

He yanks Toki’s hair hard, drags him beside him and kicks a leg across Toki’s. He hoists himself on top, trying to sink his full body weight into him. Skwisgaar has both Toki’s wrists in one hand, digging his knees into his ribcage. His grip isn’t that strong because Toki easily breaks it and shoves Skwisgaar dead in the chest. He’s on his back, braced, but instead of attacking Toki languidly crawls toward him. There’s a flash of anxiety when Skwisgaar almost asks him to say it back–-just for confirmation–-but looking up at Toki he realizes how unnecessary it is. Toki radiates love; every piece of him glows with it. He brushes some of Skwisgaar’s hair out of his eyes, cups his cheek and kisses him again. Skwisgaar feels lit up from the inside, like he swallowed the moon, light shooting out of his fingers and toes and the ends of his hair.

Toki smiles against his mouth and giggles, and whatever scrap of vanity Skwisgaar had left evaporates and he giggles, too, the both of them tittering like teenagers, nearly silent so their bodies shake. He’s so giddy, he’s never felt this happy in his life. Toki breaks away, still laughing, takes Skwisgaar’s hand and holds it flat against his chest. Skwisgaar feels Toki’s riotous heart beneath his palm, the beat so thunderous and sustained it gives him an idea for a new baseline. He feels like if he removes his hand, Toki’s heart will tear straight out of him, like this is his job now, to hold his heart, keep it safe. He can think of worse ways to spend a life.  
  
“Says it again.”


	14. Obsessions by Marina and the Diamonds [Skwisgaar/Toki]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of the first encounter with the Metal Masked Assassin.

_I want to wipe out all the sad ideas that come to me when I am holding you.  
_

  
Everyone was raw after the concert. But Nathan, Pickles and Murderface were unconscious for most of their ordeal. Skwisgaar and Toki hadn’t had that luxury. Their trauma had a face, burned into the backs of their eyelids, always lurking in the periphery. Sometimes Skwisgaar swore he felt that hot, sour breath on the back of his neck. Skwisgaar slept too much, Toki slept too little, yet both were exhausted. The others’ nerves settled, but weeks went on and Toki still jumped at loud noises; Skwisgaar still flinched if someone stood too close.  
  
“Jaysus, what _happened_ ta you two?” Pickles asked once, more annoyed than concerned. Neither had a good answer. Because what happened was Nothing; what scared them was Nothing. But that Nothing was oppressive. Skwisgaar carried the weight of it in his chest, felt it expanding in his throat every time he swallowed. Toki felt it too, the agonizing invisible crush. When Toki asked to spend the night Skwisgaar couldn’t work up the energy to say no. One night became three, then seven, then 12, then he stopped counting.  
  
They alternated being The Damaged One. Some nights Skwisgaar would start crying, without a single bodily warning sign. Often he didn’t realize it was happening until his face was mashed into Toki’s chest. Some nights he played guitar until he worked himself into such a frenzy it was like he ascended from his body. He’d come to after Toki wrested the instrument from his grip, the fretboard dark with blood.  
  
Some nights they sat on the cool bathroom floor, his hand between Toki’s shoulder blades as Toki dry-heaved into the bathtub. Some nights–-the worst nights, for Skwisgaar–-Toki’s eyes would drift into a haze, his limbs would stiffen, and Skwisgaar would be alone, talking at him in a quiet, pleading voice, trying to coax him back. He could bring him around eventually with light touches, by asking simple questions and offering enthusiastic encouragement when he received a murmured response. But on the worst night, Toki was under too long, his glazed expression fixed on something distant and unknown. Skwisgaar pulled him close as their bodies would allow, spoke into his ear, stroked his hair. He could not shake the feeling he was embracing a corpse.    
  
He kissed him as a last resort. Toki’s lips moved uncertainly and slow, the gaping maw of a deep sea creature. The flicker of life caught quick and spread to Skwisgaar. His movements were unhinged, his kisses messy. His skull was an echo chamber of desperation. _Don’t leave me again. Stay with me. I can’t do this alone._  
  
Toki broke away but kept near, wiping Skwisgaar’s cheeks with the flats of his palms. He hadn’t realized he’d started crying again.


	15. Margaritaville by Jimmy Buffet [General, Dethklok]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The band searches for Pickles's favorite Mexican bar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for CynicalGinger, who gave the prompt "It's just a flesh wound."

_I blew out my flip flop, stepped on a pop top, cut up my heel, had to cruise on back home._  
  


“I’m tellin’ ya, this spot’s the best kept secret in Cabo San Lucas,” Pickles said as he led the group down yet another nondescript alleyway. “They gahtta mezcal that’ll burn a hole through yer esophagus.”

“Uh-huh.” Nathan said flatly. “Remind me why we can’t be chauffeured to this place?”   
  
“Yeah!” Murderface bleated. “I didn’t put thisch band on my back and drag usch to successsh just to have to  _ walk _ placesch like a  _ chump _ !”   
  
“Choosing to ignore that revisionist history,” Nathan grumbled. Pickles, who was already 48 sheets to the wind, wobbled merrily along.

“Like I said, this place is a  _ secret _ . We gahtta keep a low profile.”   
  
“You says you wants to keeps a low profiles. Yets you insists on beingks seens outs in public dressed like,” Skwisgaar held a palm out and motioned down with obvious disgust, as though he was sliding his hand through a thick layer of slime. Toki snickered. “... _ dat. _ ”

Pickles’s attire for the evening consisted of a pair of plush pink flip flops, cargo shorts, a denim bucket hat with the words  _ SEXY GRANDMA _ emblazoned in rhinestones across the front, and a flamboyant button up in a jazzy tropical print. The shirt was buttoned only halfway down his torso, the rest of the material cinched in a knot at his waist to expose his paunchy white belly--a choice he refused to explain. He rutted through his infinite pockets until he exhumed a bottle of vodka he’d swiped from the minibar.   
  
“Just cause I yakked all over my suitcase and hadda make due with what I could find inna gift shop doesn’t mean I’m naht ready to  _ paaaaaaaartyyyyyyyyyyy _ .”   
  
“Sure, sure sure sure,” Nathan said, a smirk crawling across his face. “But it also makes you a prime pile-on target. You look like you’re midway through a scheme to outwit Elmer Fudd.”

“Pile-on! You look like you’re about to warn me thisch ish Bat Country.”   
  
“You look like you’re about to receive an ill-fated lesson in masculinity before your son’s fiancee’s conservative family comes over for dinner.”   
  
“Isch that a  _ Birdcage _ reference?”   
  
“Yeah. It’s also an oblique way of calling him gay.”   
  
“ _ Nicshe _ .”   
  
“You looks like you shoulds be lookings for your lost shaker of salts!”   
  
“That’s a solid burn, Toki.”   
  
“T’anks!”

“Ja, you looks like, uhhhhhh,” Skwisgaar’s happy, eager expression melted into distress. “Likes, uhhhhh a guys? Whats...ams dressed, nots goods? Because he ams...dumbs? Ands bads? At dressing himselfs?” He glanced at Toki for reassurance, but received a disappointed shake of the head. Without warning, Pickles shrieked.    
  
“Son of a  _ bitch _ !”     
  
“Really? That’s the one that gets you? That sucked!” Nathan said, oblivious to Skwisgaar’s glare. The mood downshifted when they realized Pickles was injured. He kept his left foot elevated, hopping past a cluster of garbage cans to lean against the wall. The band gathered around him in a semi circle. Pickles cradled his ankle in his palm to asses the damage.   
  
“Nah, I,  _ fack! _ I musta stepped on somethin.’ Hurts like a motherfucker, jeez.”   
  
“That’sch what you get for making usch walk,” Murderface sniffed. Nathan squatted to get a better view.

“What did you step on, a piece of glass?  **_Oh fuck_ ** **.** ”    
  
Nathan leapt to his feet, and the others recoiled with cries of horror. Pickles’s injury wasn’t a shallow scrape from a misplaced sharp object. It wasn’t something he could easily walk off, either. A rusted nail had driven straight through his shoe’s flimsy material and into the ball of his foot. The nail’s dull, blood-soaked tip jutted from beneath his big toe like a friendly groundhog.   
  
“It’s nahtta big deal.” He leaned more heavily on the wall and pinched the head of the nail between his middle finger and thumb. “I’ll just tear this sucker out--”   
  
“Pickles,  **_no_ ** **.”** **  
****  
** **“--** and we’ll be on our way. Count me off, Nate.”

**“You need to see a doctor** .”   
  
“Fine, I’ll do it. Onnnnnne…”   
**  
** Toki clutched his heaving chest.   
  
“Twooooooo…”   
  
Skwisgaar held both hands over his blanched face.   
  
“...Two agaaaaaaain, fack, I’m drunk.”   
  
Murderface had not stopped screaming.   
  
“Don’t do it Pickles,  **_don’t fucking do it_ ** .”   
  
“Three!”

He yanked it free with one swift tug, barely flinching as it slid clean out of his body. He held it aloft in triumph like a legendary sword he had wrested from the clutches of evil. Blood glided over his knuckles. Toki passed out. Skwisgaar colored the opposite wall with vomit. Murderface, still screaming, bolted out of the alley and into the adjascent street, moving with the agility of a much younger and much slimmer man. Pickles shook out his foot, flecks of blood splattering Nathan’s boots. He clapped, beaming.   
  
“Alright let’s go! I’m good! I’m READY fer ACTION. I’m--hoo, boy.”    
  
When he attempted to stand two-footed once again, his legs gave out and he swooned, clambering for balance on a stack of trash. A steady stream of blood flowed from the open port of his wound. The cheap foam of his pink sandals absorbed everything, darkening until they were an abhorrent vestige of their former, cheerful selves. Nathan rubbed at his temples. Another successful night out. 

He threw Pickles over his shoulder. The blood loss made him floppy with pliancy. 

“ _ Nyeeeeeeeh _ ,” he protested.   
  
“If you get any of your foot blood on me I swear to God they’ll never find your body.”


	16. Hold Up, Beyonce [Nathan/Charles]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nathan contemplates what might have been.

_Let's imagine for a moment that you never made a name for yourself, or mastered wealth, they had you labeled as a king._   


  
“It’s a good thing death metal worked out, cause I sure as shit can’t do anything else.”

Charles briefly glanced up from behind his mountain of paperwork to where Nathan lounged on his office couch.

“Uh huh.”

“I failed, like, EVERY class. All of them. Even art. How the fuck did I fail art!”

“Well, art is subjective.”

“I did pretty okay in Autos. I replaced a rack on a Subaru once. By myself! You know anything about cars?

“No.”

“It’s not easy, replacing a rack. Just so you know. Maybe I could have worked in a shop.”

“Sure.”

Nathan rolled onto his stomach, the armrest hiding the lower half of his face.

“Hey.”

“What.”

“Heeeeeyyyyyyy.”

“Nathan, I’m listening, WHAT.”

“If I wasn’t Nathan Explosion, From Dethklok. If I was just Nathan Explosion, auto shop guy mired in the swamps of Florida.”

“…is there a question in there?”

“Would you still,” he sunk further into the couch. “You know. Wanna hang around? Me?”

Charles peered at him over his glasses. He thought of Nathan with his hair tied back, white wife beater smeared with oil. He smiled.

“Of course.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.” He returned to his paperwork. “Who else is going to replace my rack?”


	17. Fade into Darkness, Avicii [Skwisgaar/Toki]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skwisgaar and Toki stargaze.

_Looking up, there's always sky. Rest your head, I'll take you high. We won't fade into darkness._

  
Six months ago, when Toki sought out the night sky he found only darkness. It was all encompassing, suffocating darkness; the kind that swallowed his limbs, stuck to his ribs. Sometimes he would get lucky, and the headlights of a passing car would illuminate the sewer grates hundreds of feet above him. Otherwise his prison had been a black hole, from which not even light could escape.   
  
It still seemed unreal, that he now found himself on his back on Mordhaus’s roof, beneath a sky flush with stars. Even stranger that Skwisgaar was at his side, his hand in Toki’s, loose but natural. The summer breeze stirred their hair, humidity settling over them like a second skin. Venus glowed bright in the distance. A comet flashed to life, then vanished. Skwisgaar’s thumb tracked up and down Toki’s index finger, slow.  
  
“Does you knows,” he said, his voice low. “Dat every bits whats inside of yous used to bes a star.”  
  
Toki squinted. “Whats you means?”  
  
“If stars ams bigs enoughs, whens dey die dey blows-dup, **_pashooo._** Dey flings outs all de stuffs in dem, den dat become everyt’ings inside yous. De irons in your bloods, carbons in your musckles, calciums in your bones. Alls of its was mades ins a star dat dieds a millions billions year ago.”  
  
He lifted their hands and laid them on Toki’s chest.  
  
“Everyt’ings you sees ups dere? Ams everyt’ings whats in,” his grip tightened. “ _heres_.”  
  
Toki felt his gaze on his face, heavy as a stone. He turned to meet it. He did not realize how close they were until their noses brushed. Skwisgaar’s eyes flicked to Toki’s mouth, then returned. Toki realized, for once, Skwisgaar was giving him the reins, to dictate their relationship on his own terms. He inched forward, experimental. Their lips touched, soft, brief. When Toki pulled back Skwisgaar looked indignant.  
  
“Dat’s it?” he said.   
  
“What’s you means, _dat’s it_?” Toki glared. “You should _bes_ so lucky!”  
  
A giggle eked out of Skwisgaar before he could contain it.  
  
“I was givings yous a _hard sells_. Dat supernovas stuff ams some ofs my best materials."  
  
“Guess I shoulds be thanksful.”  
  
‘I’s just thoughts, poirhaps, you woulds be a bits more, eh receptives to–”  
  
Toki cut him off the only way he could. The kiss was bruising. On the backs of his eyelids Toki saw an entire universe of stars, stretching endless in all directions, glimmering and hot and bright. When they broke apart, Toki felt the hot pants of Skwisgaar’s breath against his skin.  
  
“Dat more whats you had in minds?” he whispered. Skwisgaar laughed, breathless.  
  
“Ja, dat’s what I was aimings for.”


	18. Rather Be by Clean Bandit [Skwisgaar/Toki]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skwisgaar's been burning the candle at both ends.

_Know with all of my heart you can't shake me._

  
  
Toki shambled into Skwisgaar’s quarters on the Dethbus. It was the tail-end of a bear of a tour, and seven months on the road had beaten Toki with a tire iron. That night they played three encores; everything ached. The muscles in his back and arms burned with such intensity he couldn’t muster the energy to take off his corpse paint. From the bathroom, he heard the squeak of the faucet turning off as Skwisgaar finished cleaning up. Unlike the others, who were content to wipe down with any clean enough cloth they could find, Skwisgaar was methodical about removing his make-up. He had a whole process involving a menagerie of bottles of sweet-smelling liquids, a process he needed to start immediately. In fact, lately Skwisgaar would vanish the moment he stepped off stage, and would not resurface until they were en route to the next city. Probably adrift in a sea of pussy. Toki tried not to give it much thought, stole moments alone with him whenever he could.  
  
Kicking off his boots, Toki flopped onto Skwisgaar’s bed. Taking off the paint was such an effort, and to be honest, he couldn’t be bothered to try. So his skin could be a little broken out tomorrow, so what! He was too comfortable to care.  
  
A clean-faced Skwisgaar snatched him by the collar.  
  
“Oh noes you don’ts,” he said, hauling him into the bathroom. “You’re nots getting any of that shits on mine sheets. Gets in dere.”  
  
Groaning with annoyance, Toki lifted himself onto the marble counter beside the sink and sat. Skwisgaar set to work. After sticking both hands in an oversized vat of vaseline, he smacked fat globs of the stuff on Toki’s face. Toki studied him. His hair was knotted loose at the nape of his neck, which made his fatigue more apparent. The skin beneath his eyes was dark, his lids shining and heavy. He massaged his skin inelegantly but gently; his movements lacked their usual mechanical precision. Toki was usually able to tell when Skwisgaar had out-fucked himself, but that wasn’t the case here. He kicked at his shin.  
  
“You looks like shit,” Toki said.  
  
“Pfft. You’re ones to talks.”  
  
Toki caught Skwisgaar’s jaw to meet his unfocused gaze.  
  
“You’re nots sleepings enough.”  
  
Skwisgaar raised one shoulder, then dropped it. He closed his eyes as Toki’s fingers curved around his neck and inched into his hairline.  
  
“Where you beens going at nights?”

“Nowheres you gots to worry abouts,” he snapped, but stilled as Toki scratched at his scalp. He hummed. “I euygh. Beens, ah. Doesing some works. For de new albums.”

Toki balked, and Skwisgaar shrugged out of his touch. “De new albums isn’t due fors another five month.”

“Tryings to gets a head starts,” he said, rubbing Toki’s cheeks more aggressively. “Nathan is gonna makes me redoes everyt’ings anyways. Thoughts I’d, eh, cuts him offs at de pass.”

“You’s trying to does too much, Skwisgaar. It’s nots healthy.”

Skwisgaar arched his back, smiling from the side of his mouth. “Aw, tiny babies Toki. It so cutes de way you worries. Buts you don’ts gots to be so sads.”  
  
“Whats? I’m nots–”

“Yes you ams!” His dorky, deep-throated giggle broke up his words. He spread his fingers, then dragged them, slowly, over Toki’s eyelids, down his cheeks, and back up in a loop. “You cryyyyyyyings.”  
  
Toki’s vision was blurry from the vaseline. Glimpsing himself in the mirror on the opposite wall (Skwisgaar had mirrors installed on every wall in his quarters, because he was Skwisgaar), he saw the goopy black eyeliner streaming down his face like inky tears.

“Why you so saaaaaaaaads,” he whined, squeezing Toki’s cheeks so his lips pursed. Skwisgaar’s laugh was infectious. “You just the saddest little guys!”

“Wah!”

“Wahhhhh! Dat’s you.” His snickering hitched up into a wheeze and Toki followed. Their noses brushed, and Skwisgaar pressed a light kiss to Toki’s forehead, forgetting it was slathered in vaseline. He gagged, exaggeratedly, releasing him. He slid to the sink to rinse his hands.

“Cleans youself ups,” he said, gesturing with his chin toward the face wash. “You can stays if you wants. I’s gonna heads downstair, trys and reworks some of de lines I puts down.” He wiped his hands on the back of his pants and departed.

Toki splashed his face with water and took a squirt of cleanser. After working it into a lather, he stuck his face beneath the faucet.

“Hey!” he called, giving himself a cursory wipe with the first towel he could grab. He watched Skwisgaar in the mirror cross to his dresser to withdraw a fresh shirt. Toki fumbled out. “You needs to goes to bed!”  
  
“Toki, I gots to gets dis works done.”  
  
“Come ons.” he knelt onto the bed, reaching out to snag Skwisgaar’s belt buckle. “I hasn’t seens you all weeks. Comes cuddle wif mes for one single minutes.”  
  
Skwisgaar turned to face him, canting his hips into Toki’s. “Hmm. I sees whats you’re tryings to does heres.”  
  
“I’m nots doesing anyt’ing,” he said, drawing him close enough their faces touched. Skwisgaar steadied himself on Toki’s waist.

“You’re tryings to tricks me to gets into dat beds wif yous. It won’ts works.”  
  
“Yes it wills,” he murmured. “I’m very sneakys.”  
  
“Oh, ja?”  
  
“So sneakys.”  
  
“Mhm.”

“The sneakiest.”  
  
Toki had long ago discovered Skwisgaar’s deepest, darkest secret: The more exhausted he was, the more he craved affection. He’d gotten sloppy a few times on tour, slinking against Toki backstage, letting his head loll on his shoulder between cities. By now he must have been running on fumes because he melted into Toki’s kiss, cajoled onto the mattress with no protest whatsoever. Toki loved him like this, the sleepiness teasing out his sweetness. He knew how cagey Skwisgaar could be, and knew he didn’t act this way with just anybody.  
  
“Just for a minutes,” he slurred into Toki’s neck, coiled around him like a viper. Toki guided him to the pillow.  
  
“Uh-huh.”  
  
“Den I gots to does some works.”  
  
“Okay, pals.”  
  
As Skwisgaar nuzzled deeper into Toki’s chest, he knew he wasn’t going anywhere.


	19. Supercut by Lorde [Pickles/Tony]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pickles takes stock of what he's lost.

_Because ours are the moments I play in the dark. We were wild and fluorescent, come home to my heart._  


It was raining when they reached the motel. There’d been a screw-up with the booking; only two rooms had been reserved. While their manager argued with a tired-looking front desk clerk, Pickles swiped one of the available keys. He’d earned it, goddamn it. The concert was a shitshow. Sammy threw up blood all over his drum kit. Bullets was so hammered he fell off stage. Tony may as well not even shown up. Pickles was the only one with even an ounce of sobriety. Not that he was sober. Far from it. But he didn’t have to be sober play the fucking hits.

He trudged up the steps two at a time, the railing slick beneath his palm. He was done. Done with this tour, done with this band, done with all of it. Every show was worse than the last, a haze of discord and booze and weed and fights and pills and more booze and even more drugs. And Tony. God, Tony. He couldn’t even look at him anymore, his eyes like hollowed cicada shells.

“Heyyyyyyy.”

Of fucking course.

He was noodly and pliant from the heroin, tumbling into the room with his hands on Pickles’ hips. He moved for Pickles’ belt.

“C’mahn, dood,” he said. “I just wanna go ta bed.”

“We share that goal, love,” he slurred, nuzzling his cheek into Pickles shoulder. Pickles tried to shift out of the touch, but for a junkie Tony’s grip was surprisingly strong. His arms wound around Pickles waist and tugged him into a too-forceful embrace. “Roger still hasn’t squared away the rooms.”

“Tony…”

“Looks like we’re gonna be roomiiiiiiies.”

“Yer fuckin’ high as shit.”

Tony laughed as he snaked his hand up Pickles’ shirt. Pickles batted him away.

“Ya can sleep in here, I guess if ya need to--”

He closed his eyes as Tony pressed wet, sloppy kisses to his jaw.

“Can you not--”

“Whyyyyy?”

“Cause I don’t want ya to fuckin’ touch me, alright? _Jaysus_.”

Tony made a noise like a dying cat. Pickles felt something wet on the back of his neck.

“Tony, naht now.”

“Can you just--”

“Don’t do this.”

“I just need to hear it. Just once.”

Pickles sighed.

“Please, P.”

Outside the motel sign dimmed; the room flickered red with blinking neon. Tony shuddered and quaked behind him. His first night in California he told Tony he’d never seen the ocean. They took a bus to Santa Monica, sharing nips of whiskey from a flask in Tony's boot. The sea was black and cold but Tony’s hand was warm, and as the foam pooled at Pickles ankles he felt this could be someone he maybe might love.

He said it. There was a time when he meant it. But not now.


	20. So This Is Love from Cinderella [Skwisgaar/Toki]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Toki loves Cinderella. Skwisgaar wonders why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hachi machi, this is pretty cheesy! Response to the Tumblr prompt, "Show me your scars."

_ So this is the miracle I've been dreaming of. _

  
  
When Toki comes into his room, Skwisgaar knows what it’s for.    
  
“Okays,” he sighs, setting aside his guitar. “Puts it on.”   
  
Toki’s mouth twitches in a small, grateful smile as he crosses to the television. By now his good days far outnumbered his bad, but darkness crept in now and again. When it did, Toki preferred to lean on an old comfort. He’s wearing a tank top with ovular shapes cut out of the sides, the kind he wears when he works out. Most of his torso is visible through the holes; as he moves to pop the DVD into the player, Skwisgaar sees the long, pinkening scar knifing through his skin. Guilt pulses through him. The movie begins, and Toki clambers onto the bed. Their knees graze. 

Skwisgaar never asked how Toki became so enamored with  _ Cinderella _ . He moved into their repugnant first apartment with few items--his decrepit guitar, his ratty clothes and a worn-out VHS tape, the label rubbed out from repeated use. At every opportunity he was planted on the living room floor, head in his hands, enraptured even as the image cut with static. He watched it over and over and over, in the early morning before anyone else was awake. Sometime a departing lay would wake Skwisgaar, and he would hear the lilt of music through the walls. 

Skwisgaar feels the weight of Toki’s arm settle on his thigh. He glances over. Toki mouths along to the dialogue. He looks radiant. He gets the same dreamy look every time he watches it. Skwisgaar remembers the first time he caught him in the act. He’d woken up parched and snuck into the kitchen for a glass of water. Sliding his feet along the tile he moved silently and so did not draw the attention of Toki, anchored in his usual spot. Toki had always been cautious about undressing in front of the others, but that morning he was shirtless. The purpling dawn stretched through the living room. The faint light illuminated a silvery hatchwork of scars on his back. On screen Cinderella held her arms aloft as waves of white magic transformed her rags into a glittering, gorgeous gown. Toki imitated her, and the air flushed out from Skwisgaar’s lungs.   
  
“Skwisgaar?” Toki asks. 

“Mm?”    
  
“Why you lookings at mes likes dat?”   
  
His face is hot. “Why ams  _ yous _ lookings at  _ mes _ , huh? Ever t’inks abouts  _ dats _ ? Eh? Hows you likes  _ dem _ apple?”   
  
He blinks, but returns his gaze to the movie.    
  
“Toki?”   
  
“Yeahs?”

“Why do you likes dis movie so much?”   
  
Toki purses his lips in thought. Cinderella and the Prince waltz through the courtyard.

“Cinderella’s life ams bads. Bads t’ings happens to hers dat she can’ts change. Buts she believes t’ings will gets better for hers. She believes  _ super duper extra _ hards dat her lifes amn’ts goinkgs to stay as crappy and bads as it ams forevers. Ands it gets better. And she gets a happy endings.” He turns to face him. “If you’re goods, you shoulds gets de happy endings. Rights?”

Skwisgaar realizes now how close they are, close enough he feels Toki’s breath on his face. He tries to come up with a dig, a burn, anything to puncture the earnestness. But all he can think about is Toki’s lips, and how they would feel pressed against his.

“Rights?” he repeats.    
  
“Uh-huh.”    
  
“Rights,” he murmurs.   
  
Warmth floods Skwisgaar’s senses. As they kiss, the music swells.   



	21. Cry Baby by Cee Lo Green [Skwisgaar/Toki]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After his embarrassing display at the Norwegian Ice Festival, Toki just wants to recover in peace. Skwisgaar makes that tough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Response to the prompt, "'You almost died!' kiss." Set after Bookklok.

_ Cry, crybaby. I guess that I'm the bad guy now. _

  
  
Most days Skwisgaar was a pressure cooker of repression, converting any inkling of emotion into a 24 carat diamond of pure, uncut stress. But when the lid blew off, as it inevitably always did,  _ everything _ came gushing out, reducing him to a weepy, wounded human disaster. Grievances he’d been storing for weeks, even  _ months _ , rocketed to the surface and launched his dignity into space. 

So while Toki recovered after the humiliating massacre at Guitarganza, attempting to collect the fractured shards of his pride, he was  _ a little miffed _ when a slumped, sobbing Skwisgaar stumbled into the med bay. He was a morose mess, wheezing as snot and tears ran rivulets down his face.  

“Why he gots to bes in here?!” Toki barked. “Gets hims outs of mine sights!”   
  
A hooded staffer, undeterred, guided Skwisgaar to the unoccupied bed beside Toki’s.    
  
“Apologies, my liege,” she said as she prepped an IV. “Master Skwigelf requires medical attention.”

Skwisgaar wailed, as though the sound would serve as confirmation.   
  
“He’s only  _ doesing _ dis for attention, dere amn’ts anyt’ing medical abouts it!” 

“He’s severely dehydrated, my lord.”    
  
Skwisgaar turned his pitiful gaze onto Toki--red, continent-shaped blotches bright against his skin.   
  
“T-T-T-Toki,” he blubbered. “I’m s-s-so glads you’re o-k-k-kays.”

Toki rolled his eyes so hard they almost dislodged from his skull and sailed into orbit.   
  
“Everyt’ings ams so b-b-bads,” he continued. “E-E-Everybodies t’inks I ams dis b-b-big asshole, and alls mine s-s-sponsors ams p-p-p-pullings outs, and somebodies puts p-p-p-pee on my pant, ands dens I thoughts yous was goingks to d-d-diiiiiiiies.” 

“Wills you quits it wifs de crying act alreadies?”   
  
Skwisgaar yelped as the needle breached his skin before replying, gasping between each word.

“Don’ts! You t’inks! If I’s! Coulds stops! I woulds have! By nows! You diiiiiiii-hi-hi-hi-iiiick?”   
  
He dissolved into hiccups, his whole body shaking. The smallest flicker of sympathy burned in Toki’s chest, but he quickly snuffed it out.    
  
“Fines, whatevers, cries alls you wants. I’m nots goings to feel bads for yous. You  _ ams _ a big asshole.”

“ _ Yous  _ am a big asshole,” he sniveled, dragging wrist across his eyes. “I hads a really shitty weeks and it was all because of  _ yous _ .”

Considering the innumerable shitty weeks Skwisgaar had orchestrated for Toki over the years, he hadn’t expected to feel  _ guilty _ at returning the favor. But seeing this man, someone he adored and respected, whimpering in his own personal punishment hole, and knowing  _ he _ was the one who put him there, made him ache. His rage broke off like a bloodclot, and he was left only with sadness. 

He glanced at the klokateer. “Cans you gives to us a minutes?”

“No?” she said, balking. “Of course you can’t? I’m a medical professional. Both of you need to be supervised. I took an oath to do no harm, and I’m not going to break my word because--”

While she was speaking, Toki clambered to the bedside table holding his personal items. He snatched the chain of his wallet and tossed it wholesale in the klokateer’s direction. She clapped it between her hands and opened it with a loud, velcro-y  **_riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip_ ** .  Silently, she thumbed through the thick wad of cash within. Withdrawing everything, she dropped the wallet and stuffed the money into her bra.   
  
“--Yeah, I can give you a tight five,” she said, and left.    
  
When she was gone, Toki unlatched the armband hooked up to the monitor tracking his heartrate. No longer restrained, he hopped off his bed and climbed, carefully, into Skwisgaar’s. He barely had to offer an embrace before Skwisgaar collapsed into his arms like a pile of wet rags. 

“If it help,” he said, dropping his chin on the top of Skwisgaar’s head. “ _I_ hads a really shitty weeks all because of mes, too.”

Skwisgaar laughed wetly. “Dat does help, a littles.” He paused. “You scared mes. Ons stage.”   
  
Toki was quiet, brushing Skwisgaar’s hair off his shoulders. Skwisgaar’s hold on Toki’s waist tightened. He turned his face into Toki’s chest, water trickled down his exposed torso.   
  
“I’s sorry,” he muttered, muffled by Toki’s skin. “Fors a lot of t’ings.”   
  
“I’s sorry, toos.” He pressed a firm kiss to Skwisgaar’s hairline. “We gots to works outs some stuff, figure outs how nots to makes each other feels like dey living inside de crapper all de times.”

He felt Skwisgaar nod against him.    
  
“Does we haves to does dat right now?”

“Noes.”

“Goods.” He scuttled closer, kissing Toki’s collar bone. “I missed yous so much.”   
  
“Me toos.”   
  
“Ands I been wantings to makes up so bads, because dere ams somet’ings very imp-or-tants I needs to tells to yous.”   
  
“Ja?”   
  
Skwisgaar grinned. “Dat outfits ams really fucking  _ stupid _ .”   
  
For the first time all week, they were laughing together.    



	22. Whatta Man by Salt-N-Pepa [General, Dethklok]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Murderface keeps a ledger of all the dudes he'd go gay for. It's not weird. It's not weird!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by trans-pickles headcanon, " William Murderface, who is totally straight, has a list of people he'd go gay for. It's a written list. Whenever it comes up in conversation he makes sure to assure everyone that he's totally straight before pulling out five notebooks full of names. The others catch glimpses of names from "Chris Evans" to "Cute male barista who smiled at me yesterday." They cut him off once he reaches the "fictional characters" section."
> 
> This is also an example where I wrote the story first, and arbitrarily picked a song that was semi-related in order to stick it in this collection. Yeah!!!

_He dresses like a dapper don, but even in jeans, he's a God-sent original, the man of my dreams._   
  


  
Nathan squinted at the well-worn notebook. “Which one is Chris Evans again?”   
  
“He ams de space guys who flies around wif de trash panda ands de dumb tree,” Skwisgaar said.

“No, that’sch Chrisch  _ Pratt _ .”   
  
“He ams de other space guys whats flies arounds wif hims pointy-ear pals!” Toki chirped.    
  
“That’s Chris  _ Pine _ .”   
  
“Den he ams de other  _ other _ space guys whats flies around wifs dat big hammers!”   
  
“That’s Chris  _ Hemsworth _ ,” Nathan sighed. “Wow, pop culture is...really oversaturated on Chrises, right now.”    
  
“Captain America,” Pickles said, pulling up a photo on his phone. “He’s Captain America. We saw  _ Civil War _ together, c’mahn.”   
  
The group clustered around Pickles as he thumbed through the endless stream of images Google produced: Stills from Marvel movies, stylized fashion shoots, screengrabs of late-night talk show skits. He paused on a photo, most likely from a fitness magazine spread, of him shirtless, slicked up, staring piercingly dead into the camera.   
  
“Gahd, he could  _ break me in half _ ,” Pickles said, zooming in on his abs. “I’m kinda into it.”   
  
“Yeah, I see the appeal, I guess.” Nathan grumbled. “If you like...faces. And. Arms…”   
  
“I bets he ams a really good huggers,” Toki said. Pickles nodded enthusiastically.    
  
“Ooh, yeeah, he’s onna those guys that puts his whole  _ body _ into it, ya know?”   
  
Skwisgaar tilted his head to the side. “I feels like he woulds really listen to mes. Makes me feels  _ heard _ .”   
  
“He has kind eyes.”   
  
“He’s onna those guys who’ll remember somethin’  _ really specific _ about you, then bring it up because he genuinely wants ta know more.”   
  
“Laughs at all your jokes.”   
  
“Evens de bads ones.”   
  
“ _ Especially _ the bad ones. Cause he cares. He really, really cares.”   
  
A contemplative silence settled over the band. Nathan glanced up at Murderface, who was grinning smugly. He rolled his eyes.   
  
“ _ Fine _ , that one’s not weird.”   
  
“ _ None _ of them are weird, you ding-dongsch!”   
  
Skwisgaar coughed, a flush spreading across his cheeks. “I’d go gays for Bucky, toos.”   
  
“Ohhhhhhh my Gahd,  _ hard same _ .”   
  
“Remembers in  _ Civils War _ ,” Toki twisted his shirt in his fists. “Whens he ripped dat motorcycles rights outs of de airs? Ands just  _ rodes aways _ ons it?”   
  
“Oh. Right. Yeah. That was awesome. That gave me... **_feelings_ ** .”   
  
“Oh man, how’d I forget Schabaschtian Schtan? Gimme my book back, Nathan, he’sch  _ going on the lischt _ .”    



	23. Age of Kings by The Mountain Goats [General, Dethklok]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the end of the world as Dethklok knows it, and no one feels fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is something a little different! It's something from a larger piece I'm working on, but since I don't know when I'll be able to complete that, I'm putting this section here. When I eventually finish the other story, I'll put it up whole-hog and delete this chapter. This is a real wet and wild one. By which I mean, there is a lot of violence and death.
> 
> EDIT 9-21-17: I've expanded this into a full-fledged story, [which you can read here!](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12149268/chapters/27567717)

  
  
_Small chambers shrinking 'till they vanish._  
_Wolves in the hallway gaining ground._  
_Reach down to the moment when I should have said something true._  
_Shadows and their sources now stealing away with you._

You’re standing in a safe room, in a wing of Mordhaus you’ve never seen before. The air is cool and damp, which tells you you’re deep underground. You’re huddled close to your bandmates, flanked on either side by klokateers and members of The Church of the Black Klok. Charles stands before you, stripping of his traditional robes to reveal his more familiar suit beneath.  
  
The doors to the safe room, triple-locked and barricaded with couches and bookcases and pool tables and anything else you all could get your hands on, are rattling. The hoard of Revengencers that chased you here bang on the other side. These Revengencers are not like the mindless followers you saw during your imprisonment with Abigail. They are feral and inhuman, imbued with a light that makes their hearts and their veins glow through their skin. You recognize this light, sort of, as the one bursting from the flying demon at what was meant to be Dethklok’s last show. That guy--what was his name? Salami? Why didn’t you pay attention?--has gifted them with an otherworldly strength, the power compounding their bloodlust.  
  
Mordhaus is impenetrable, that’s how you--all of you, all five of you, together--designed it. No mortal man is capable of breaching its walls. But what pursues you is not mortal. It is not even man.  
  
Charles is speaking fast, too fast. It’s hard to hear him over the sound of Revengencers’ bodies slamming against the opposite side of the door. _Boom. Boom. Boom._ Each _crash_ brings them closer to you, each _thud_ chips away at your makeshift barrier. It will not hold up much longer. Charles keeps repeating _stay alive, stay alive, if any of you die it’s all over you have to stay alive do you understand_. You do not understand. You hear things like _destiny_ and _end of days_ and _fate of humanity in your hands_ and you feel so sick. Whatever is happening, it’s up to you to stop it. But you don’t know how.  
  
The barricade collapses, and a Revengencer pries a hole through the door with its bare hands. They clamber through, walking on their knuckles, limbs twisting into unnatural angles, tattered clothing stained in bile and blood. They’re everywhere. The Church members and klokateers swarm to protect you, with Charles at the helm. You’re too stunned to move. A Revengencer opens its hands to unsheath long claws and slashes a klokateer clean open, his intestines tumbling to the floor with a _splosh_. Another leaps onto a church member and bites into their neck like a rabid animal. As it pulls up to swallow you see strands of tendons lodged between its jagged teeth.  
  
Charles moves in a whirlwind, dispatching two, three, four Revengencers at a time. Nathan lunges to help but Charles shoves him backwards. He withdraws a single-button remote from a pocket within his jacket. As he presses it, a panel opens in the floor beside you, revealing a stone staircase. He yells at you now, to go, run, _please_ , please **get out while you have the chance. Stay alive**. Skwisgaar nabs the back of your shirt and you’re on the move, descending deeper still into the pits of Mordhaus. You hear a metallic grinding above you, and see the panel in the floor move back into place. Before it does, you see Charles, squaring up for a brawl as he wraps his knuckles with his tie. The panel closes, and he is gone.  
  
Through this winding corridor there is a garage. You need to get there and find a vehicle, _any_ vehicle, that will get you out and away so you can--what? You don’t know. You don’t understand what is being asked of you. All you know is the five of you need to escape Mordhaus, or all is lost. The fittest of the bunch, you lead the pack; Skwisgaar, with his enormous gait, is close at hand. You don’t know where you’re going so Nathan shouts directions from a few feet back,  Pickles at his heels. Pickles learned how to fly the Dethjet while drunk, which means he can _only_ fly it while drunk. He clutches a handle of vodka in each hand, alternating chugs as he sprints, pausing from his pulls to dry heave. Even with this obstacle, he still outpaces Murderface, who moves sluggishly, grabbing at his chest as he wheezes. He drops to his knees.  
  
You whirl back, barking to _get a move on fatass_ , but Murderface’s lagging is not for lack of stamina. Everyone stops and watches in horror.  From his chest emanates a pulsating, dark purple light. Thin veins expand outward like roots, coiling around his limbs, his whole body glowing. Whatever thing that claimed those Revengencers, is claiming Murderface.  
  
“Fight it, Murderface!” Nathan screams.  
  
“I’m... _trying_ ,” he chokes, light creeping up his neck, discoloring his eyes. “I... _can’t_.”  
  
A bright shape emerges from the wound on his wrist. It splits and moves up his arm, across his chest and back down, both of his hands hidden within twin balls of light.  It elongates and contorts, forming into something solid, something sharp. Murderface outstretches his arms, and on each of his hands are two shimmering, purple katars. He flexes his hold on the handles, and stands. Pickles takes a step forward, his grip tight on the necks of his bottles.  
  
“Dood?” he asks, a tremor in his voice. “Are ya--”  
  
It happens so fast you think your vision skipped, like a film reel missing frames. The bottles smash to the floor and you see Pickles, held aloft and kicking wildly, with one of Murderface’s weapons buried in his chest. He claws at Murderface’s wrist, gurgling with desperation, blood filling his mouth and dribbling onto Murderface’s pearlescent skin, and with his free hand Murderface uppercuts, driving the other katar through the bottom of Pickles’s jaw. The point emerges from the crown of his head, coated in brain matter. You see the blade taking up all the space in Pickles’s gaping mouth, the otherworldly purple glow illuminating his skull like a Jack-o-Lantern, and then there is silence.  
  
You don’t have time to mourn, barely have time to react before Murderface tosses Pickles’ mangled corpse aside and turns on you. He clangs the katars together and they flash, balls of light once more. They become malleable as he pulls his fists apart, a staff stretching between them. Something forms at the head. It’s not a staff. He holds in his hands a massive warhammer.  
  
Nathan is dumbstruck, a pillar of salt. You feel Skwisgaar’s hand on your back urging you forward. He tugs on Nathan’s arms, hair, shirt, yelling at him to _moves moves_ ** _moves_** **,** snapping him out of his stupor and the three of you are off. At the top of the hall there’s a _smash_ , the sound of metal bounding down the stone steps. Then you hear it, the ghoulish shrieks of the Revengencers. Your back-up forces have fallen. They’re coming.    
  
Murderface maneuvers the warhammer expertly, arcing it in graceful figure eights without losing a step. He moves with such fluidity you could swear he’s gliding. A horizontal swing clips you in the back of the thigh and you go down, hard. It’s not a break--you know what those feel like--but _God_ it hurts, it hurts so bad. You try to stand but as you put pressure on the leg, the edges of your vision go dark, and you scream, stumbling back to the ground. The slate beneath your face is cold, and when you roll onto your back you see Murderface standing over you. He spins the warhammer hand-over-hand, and while it twirls it transforms again, widening and sharpening into a massive, two-handed great sword. Raising it above him, he twists his fists around the handle in opposite directions, as if to say _I’m going to split you right down the middle_. Holding your arms over your head, you close your eyes and wait for the blow. But it never comes.  
  
Opening your eyes, you see Nathan beside you, one leg tucked beneath him, the other outstretched like he just slid into home plate. He’s gripping the blade in both hands, veins bulging from his forearms and biceps from the strain. Blood winds down his wrists. Murderface tries to pull it out but it won’t budge because Nathan is strong, he’s so strong, he’s the strongest man you’ve ever known. There are footfalls on your other side and Skwisgaar is back, pointing at the end of the hall beyond Murderface’s shoulder. A pool of purple light creeps along the floor and walls, and then they’re there in a wave, skittering and horrible. The thing that once was Murderface stares down at you and smiles, his teeth gnashing, pointed, monstrous.  
  
“ _Stay al~ive_ ,” Nathan grits.   
  
You refuse. You can’t lose him too. The mass draws closer. Nathan and Skwisgaar lock eyes; Skwisgaar’s expression morphs from confused terror into steely determination. He nods. Before you know it, he’s slugging your arm across his shoulders, hefting you to your feet, and the two of you are bolting. The pain is excruciating. Skwisgaar snakes his arm around your waist and sacrifices speed to support most of your weight. You glance back. Before the Revengencers overtake him, Nathan looks at you one final time, as though he’s trying to communicate something he could never put into words. You don’t know what he is trying to say. You only feel gratitude, and loss.  
  
Finally, _finally_ you reach the garage. Skwisgaar locks the door behind you and kicks down a 10 foot shelf; it topples sideways to serve as another flimsy barricade. There are machines of all types surrounding you--cars, motorcycles, jetskis, hand gliders, big wheels--but you lumber to the hoverbikes, the crafts that are the furthest distance from the door. Skwisgaar helps you sit and takes the place in front of you. The hoverbikes are designed for one rider so you need to squeeze tight, hooking your arms under his armpits and pressing your body flush against his. Skwisgaar’s hands are shaking, he can’t get the keys in the ignition. You’re running out of time. The Revengencers are tearing at the door. Just as they break through, the engine flares to life. You’re launched out, out to freedom, past the grounds of Mordhaus and the humble homes of Mordland, through the brambles of the woods beyond its borders and still going, the cold and the speed making your lungs ache and you’re still going, Skwisgaar’s hair whipping across your cheeks and further still, away from the only life you’ve ever known and into something unknown, and foreboding.  
  
You’re miles out when the mech starts to malfunction. It swerves off course, dipping low to the ground and narrowly avoiding collision with a tree stump. You worry you picked a faulty bike, that you should have checked the tank was full. But it’s not the vehicle that falters; it’s Skwisgaar. You hear, faintly, over the roar of the engine, his pained gasps for air. He cuts the engine when you reach a canopy of trees, the bike dropping to an ugly, unceremonious stop. He halves himself over the handlebars and wails. You know you need to keep moving, but your grief is so tremendous it cannot be contained by the physical bounds of your body. You wail with him, sobbing between his shoulder blades. Your embrace around him tightens and he paws blindly for your hand and takes it, painfully, in his own.   
  
Charles was clear the prophecy could only be fulfilled with all five of you, and with three of you dead, so too die any hopes of stopping the nightmare you’ve created. You had one job, a job you did not want or ask for, and you failed. Your friends are dead. You wish you were, too.


	24. I Feel It Coming by The Weeknd [Skwisgaar/Toki]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Toki calls a shot, and Skwisgaar calls his bluff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another Tumblr prompt! This one was, "I have you shoved against the wall but now I can’t stop looking at your mouth." Aw yeah.

_I'm just tryna get you high, and faded off this touch._

  
They were wobbling back to their rooms, giggly and liquored-up, when Toki dropped a bombshell non-sequitur.  
  
“You knows,” he said, stumbling into him, “For such a huge sluts, I don’ts t’ink you lets people takes you to beds very often.”  
  
Skwisgaar snorted and shoved him off. “Whats you talkings about? I gets laid four time a day. And dat ams a _slow_ day.”  
  
“I amn’ts saying you don’ts _sleeps around_ a lot,” Toki returned his playful push in kind. “I saying you don’ts lets people _takes you to beds_. Dere’s a difference.”  
  
“Ja?” He squared on Toki. “What does you knows abouts dat?”  
  
“Plentys!”  
  
“ _Reallys_.”  
  
“Just cause I don’ts waves my dick arounds like _yous_ don’ts means I don’ts gots,” he closed one eye slowly, like half of his face had just gone numb, and poked his tongue out of the corner of his mouth, “ _moves_.”  
  
“Pfft. You gots moves, huh.”  
  
“Yups!”  
  
“I’d likes to sees _dat_.”  
  
“Ams dat a dare?”  
  
Skwisgaar pressed his lips together. He sized Toki up, smirked.  
  
“Ja, it ams,” he said, calling his bluff. “Let’s goes, Captain Falcons. Show mes your moves.”  
  
“Okays. Here I goes.”  
  
He clamped his hands on Skwisgaar’s cheeks, the impact making a hollow _smack._ The booze made him unaware of his strength, the action knocking Skwisgaar back against the wall. Toki stared at him. And stared. And kept staring, for an uncomfortable amount of time.  
  
“ _Make outs wif mes_.”  
  
Skwisgaar guffawed. “Yowza.”  
  
“I dids it!”  
  
“Ja, dat was perfects, I ams seduced, nows.”  
  
“I tolds yous I hads moves.”  
  
In the fog of his inebriation, Skwisgaar vaguely noticed Toki had rolled his hips to push into his.  
  
“Wells, little Tokis, dat sorts of t’ings mights works ons desperates groupie sluts, buts I t’inks you wills finds I ams nots so easily wooed. For you sees, I ams a masters of mine crafts and can’ts be swayed by dumb littles--”  
  
“You gots really pretty eyes, you knows dat?"  
  
Skwisgaar’s legs hitched. “Uh.”  
  
“Dey ams so _blues_.” Toki slid his hands off Skwisgaar’s face and trailed downward. He craned forward, his eyes glinting with--Skwisgaar didn’t want to use the word _smoldering_ , because _ugh_ , but **_goddamn_**. Toki closed his hand around Skwisgaar’s forearm. “Likes an ocean mades of ice. Sometimes I wants to takes dat color and makes a blankets wif it so I cans lives insides it forevers.”  
  
“Ohs.”  
  
Skwisgaar watched as Toki lifted his hand to his mouth, his brain fuzzy. Toki’s kisses climbed into his palm and up his fingers. Starting at Skwisgaar’s pinky, he laddered up them until he reached his index and middle fingers. Skwisgaar inhaled sharply as the tips of his fingers slide over the threshold of Toki’s lips. Skwisgaar felt heavy, like he was running along the ocean floor with underwater weights. He sunk most of his weight against the wall. Toki nudged his knee along the seam of Skwisgaar’s fly, and his legs fell apart to allow it access. The edges of everything went blurry, but Toki remained in sharp focus.  
  
“For somebodies so _vain_ you sures don’ts know how to takes a compliment.” He bit down lightly on his first knuckle. “Says thank you.”  
  
“Thank yous,” he answered, an involuntary reflex.  
  
They were flush against one another, chest to chest. Skwisgaar’s blood pulsed urgently against his temples. Each breath was weightier than the last. At some point his free hand had traveled to Toki’s waist and knotted in the fabric of his shirt. Toki smiled, first warm, then expanding into the biggest, brattiest, most shit-eating grin Skwisgaar had ever seen.  
  
“Dat was nots as hards as I thoughts it would bes.”  
  
“You’re de fucking _woirst_ ,” Skwisgaar gritted, and pulled him in.


	25. I Didn't Just Come Here to Dance, Carly Rae Jepsen [Skwisgaar/Toki]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's a dance party! It's not weird.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr prompt fill for "We were dancing but all of a sudden it’s a slow song and we’re standing here awkwardly staring at each other." Am I going to ascribe a Carly Rae Jepsen song to all of these? Yes, most likely.
> 
> EDIT 4-27-18: Why didn't I originally name this after I Didn't Just Come Here to Dance, a CRJ song that is explicitly about hooking up on the dance floor? Am I the dumbest person on the planet????

_It's you, boy, you in the corner. Something is taking me over. I only came here for you._  


  
Just as he’d been dragged to this very Not Metal nightclub, Skwisgaar found himself being dragged to the dance floor. The speakers blared some garbage EDM song as strobe lights flashed in purples, reds and yellows. Toki clutched Skwisgaar’s wrist and yanked him deeper and deeper into the crowd, paying little mind as he inadvertently swerved him into several bewildered dancers. The center of the dance floor was illuminated with electronic tiles that shifted color in time to the music.   
  
“Dance wif meees!” Toki shrieked when they were in the middle of the action. He swung their attached arms like a jumprope, striking a couple to their right. (Skwisgaar met the girl’s annoyed glare and mouthed _Sorry!_ ) “Quits beings a Mr. Grumpy Gils and daaaaance.”  
  
Skwisgaar scanned the throng of dancers surrounding him, thrashing and flailing and drunk. Seeing no immediate escape, he groaned.  
  
“Ugh. Whatevers.”  
  
He had barely taken two steps when, without transition or warning, the track switched. The tune was much slower, tender, and crushingly earnest. The kind of thing that would play at the climax of a terrible teen movie. Skwisgaar whipped his head back and forth, watching in horror as people paired off, the dance floor congealing into a wiggling, solid mass of bodies. Escape was impossible.   
  
For what it was worth, Toki looked as alarmed as Skwisgaar felt.  
  
“Uh. I didn’ts expects dis to happens.”  
  
Skwisgaar shuffled his feet. “Dis ams…….pretty……awkwards………”  
  
Toki skimmed the crowd, his hold on Skwisgaar’s wrist slackening.  
  
“It…probably more awkwards to try to gets through dese people.”  
  
“Hgghnnn.”  
  
A particularly amorous couple behind Skwisgaar pawed at each other. Oblivious to everything but their make-outs, they bumped him, the force knocking him straight into Toki’s chest.   
  
“Oof!”  
  
Toki snaked an arm around Skwisgaar’s waist to steady him. A devious smirk crept across his lips. Instead of releasing, he slipped his fingers between Skwisgaar’s, tugging him flush against him.   
  
“Toki, whats–”  
  
“C’mahnnnnns,” he cut him off. “You saids you’ds dance wif mes.”  
  
“Technicallys,” he said, moving his hand to Toki’s hip. “I dids no such things.”  
  
Space was limited, so they couldn’t do much besides sway. Skwisgaar fidgeted with Toki’s shirt hem. His gaze shifted to the DJ booth, to the bar, to the ceiling, to the glowing floor beneath him. Anywhere was better than Toki, who was so much closer than he had any right to be. How long was this stupid song?  
  
Out of places to look, he chanced a glance at Toki. Big mistake. Toki was staring at him moon-eyed and had this big cheesy grin and Skwisgaar was churning with something he didn’t understand and if he had been a groupie slut Skwisgaar _probably_  would have made a move by now and this was _dumb all of this was confusing and dumb_  and when was it going to _stop_.  
**  
_BRWAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHNNNNNNNN_.**  
  
A deafening airhorn cracked the air, and on cue, four cannons positioned at each corner of the dance floor set off. The room was assaulted with a barrage of glitter and white smoke. The crowd screamed. Skwisgaar screamed. Someone grabbed his face. He mashed into Toki, and suddenly they were kissing, _really_  kissing, Skwisgaar wasn’t 100 percent sure _why_  but God it was nice, it was _so nice_.  
  
The crowd raged around them, but for Skwisgaar everything was quiet.


	26. You're a Wolf, Sea Wolf [Skwisgaar/Toki]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Toki never remembers what happens when he turns.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was an answer to a non-human Tumblr prompt for "werewolf."

_You're a wolf, boy, get out of this town._

  
  
Toki never remembered what happened while he was turned; only the aftermath. When he was turned he did not possess language, or emotion, or thought. He did not even possess himself, his mind a maelstrom of primal, amorphous rage. Afterwards, when he returned to his body sluggish and contrite, he was grateful for physical reminders. The sharp pressure of soil embedded deep beneath his nails. The sting of fresh blood on his tongue. The weighted ache in his chest, both from the pain of transformation and the guilt of horrors he could not recall.

When he came to that morning, he was in the bath. Skwisgaar’s bath. Most mornings after he’d turned, he’d awaken scrubbed clean, dressed in fresh clothes, tucked into bed with a body warming his backside. Skwisgaar always saw to that. That was not the case that morning. Dark soapy spirals encircled him. He scratched behind his ear; a tuft of fur tumbled into the murky water. Behind him he heard a mournful sigh. Toki glanced back and saw Skwisgaar at the mirror, half his face shrouded in shadow, touching his cheek with disbelieving hesitancy.  
   
“Oh, Gods,” he murmured.  
  
Toki braced on either side of the tub and, groaning with effort, lifted himself out of it. The sloshing water startled Skwisgaar. He turned into the graying morning light and then Toki saw it. The horrible three-pronged gash, still raw, slashed diagonally from temple to jaw. It would certainly scar. Toki’s heart sunk through him like lead.  
  
“I didn’ts t’inks you wakes up so soons,” Skwisgaar said as Toki climbed from the tub. He drew a circle around the mark in the air with a trembling hand. “Guess dis means Moidaface will stops callings me pretty boys, huh.”  
  
A sliver of the wolf was still within him, his senses still dialed up to their max. Had they not been, he would not have noticed how Skwisgaar flinched when he approached. He would not have felt his pulse pounding as he embraced him. He would not have heard the tremor of the lie as Skwisgaar assured him, “It’s okays.” Toki knew. Skwisgaar feared him. As he should. 


	27. Perfect by Alanis Morissette [Serveta Skwigelf]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Serveta's boy is perfect.

_If you're flawless then you'll win my love._

  
  
Serveta thought pregnancy was supposed to exhaust her, but for those nine months she thrums with energy. She feels a tempest brewing in her belly, each movement like a strike of lightening. When she imagines herself as a mother, she does not see a child, but a crackling ball of light. She knows she is incubating something celestial. After she learned she was having a boy she decides to name him for her grandfather, the only man she ever loved. She hopes he gets her teeth.  
  
He comes on his exact due date; the doctor compliments him for being so prompt. She holds him up for Serveta to see. Ten fingers and ten toes. Porcelain skin, a tuft of blond hair. He’s elysian. Her perfect little boy.   
  
She reaches for him, wants to feel him flush against her. The nurse lays him on her chest, his body slick and warm on her skin. He looks up at her. His eyes are piercing, and though he is only a minute old in his gaze is something ancient and divine. This was the moment she most hungered for, the one every mother she’d ever known spoke of with hushed awe. The moment she held her child and felt that instantaneous rush of primal, maternal love.The moment she cradled the life she created and felt, _finally_ , a sense of purpose. A reason for existence. For _him_. She stares into his eyes, holds him close.  
  
And feels nothing.


	28. Missing the War by Ben Folds Five [Charles]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An annual encounter has Charles contemplating his past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of my head canons is Charles was married before start the series, but they split just as Dethklok was starting to gain traction. They meet once a year to catch up.

_Time may fly, and dreams may die. The shaking voice that tells him, "go" still thinks he might. He knows he won't._

  
  
Her silhouette was unmistakable; elegant and severe, the angular haircut accentuating her sharp features. She sat at the bar as if she had always been there, as if the building and the block and even the city manifested to accommodate her. This place, spare and smoky and decorated like an old hunting lodge, would not have been her first choice, but it did grant them anonymity. She always deferred to Charles when it came to these things. She refused to be a part of his narrative, then or now.

Charles sat in the empty seat beside her, a glass of cognac awaiting him on the bartop. The stool’s leather was stiff and unforgiving. She leaned forward to greet him, her lips occupying the air beside his cheek.

“Twenty minutes late,” she said. “Impressive. For you that’s almost early.”

“Hello, Jordan,” he replied.

She sipped at a scotch, neat, as she described the minutia of her life. She told him about the foundation’s latest fundraiser, about which senators’ balls she had in a vice grip. She had taken up yoga. She was learning Italian. In passing she mentions _Alexander_ , her tone breezy–or what approximated breezy for her, anyway. Charles knew he should recognize the name but didn’t. The silver cuff he gave her for their fifth anniversary adorned her wrist.

“And what of you, Charles?” She asked after a pause. She was not asking about work. While they were together she kept his business at arms length (plausible deniability, they’d agreed) and had yet to shake the habit. Charles reflected on his long, bloody, agonizing, loud, lonely year. He took a drink.

“I read a book,” he said. She smiled.

“Really.”

“For pleasure.”

“Really! How did you find it?”

He shrugged. “Derivative.”

She laughed, the sound like three notes of an untuned instrument. Charles peered into the dark contents of his glass.

“Jordan, do you ever regret–”

“No.”

“You don’t know what I’m going to say.”

“It doesn’t matter.” She finished her drink, placed it on the bar, and edged it forward with her index finger. “I don’t regret anything.”

“Come now.”

“It’s true.” She bent toward him, hand curled beneath her chin, as though she were about to divulge a secret. “Would you like to know how?”

Charles motioned with his drinking hand for her to proceed.

“Because I have absolute conviction in all of my choices.” She laid her hand on his forearm. She had never been a soft woman, and never tried to be. But the tenderness in her touch was new, and sincere. “All of them.”

They stayed that way for a time, the silence glacial. When Charles tried to steal a surreptitious glance at the clock beyond her shoulder, she withdrew.

“Has our time drawn to a close already? Seems it grows shorter every year.”

“We’re getting old, Jordan.”

A short breath puffed from her nostrils. “You’ve always been old.”

He reached for his wallet, but she waved him off as she stood. She was a head taller than him flat-footed, but in those heels (which she had certainly worn on purpose) she towered.

“I’ve taken care of it,” she said, turning to the door. “You’ll get the next one.”

They waited for her car to come around in the rain, both pressed beneath Charles’s umbrella, untouching. Water soaked the back of Charles’s suit jacket. A sleek black vehicle parked before them, and the driver hurriedly scuttled around the backside to open the passenger door. She nodded, and the driver returned to the front seat.

“So.” She said.

“So.” He answered.

Her expression shifted. And there she was. The girl who wanted to watch the Barcelona sunrise from the terrace of their honeymoon suite, her hair long and loose. Who had been unable to find a robe, and so stepped outside in his wedding shirt, buttoned up to the neck. Who drank warm Veuve Cliquot straight from the bottle. Charles knew the girl then and the woman before him were one and the same, and yet he saw them as sisters. He could not stop himself from missing them both so, so much.

She gently removed his glasses, smattered with rain, and folded the arms down with care. With two fingers she tugged his lapel forward and tucked them, safe, into the front pocket of his dress shirt. As she touched the scar on the side of his face, her mouth twisted like a peach pit.

“Take care of yourself, Charlie.”

He wanted to tell her the same. Instead he took her hand, helped her into the car, and shut the door.


	29. Best Friend, Queen [Nathan/Pickles]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two drinking buddies make amends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This could be considered shippy, it could be considered platonic, you decide! We have fun, don't we?

  
_Whenever this world is cruel to me, I got you to help me forgive._   


  
The room was littered with empty bottles. Nathan sat among them like an ancient creature in the decimated ruins of a city. Pickles kicked one aside; it clattered across the room and skittered beneath the couch.  
  
“Whatcha doin’ there, pal?” he asked. “Havin’ some floor beers?”  
  
“Yeah. You know what they say about floor beers.”  
  
“What’s that?”  
  
“When you have a floor beer…”  
  
“Yeeah?”  
  
“It is…a beer…”  
  
“Alright.”  
  
“On the floor.”  
  
“Sure is, buddy.”  
  
Pickles stooped and helped himself to one, the bottle hissing as he twisted off its cap. He squated beside Nathan, the discarded bottles a vast wall between them. They sipped in silence for a time. The past few weeks their silences had crackled with tension. It was strange; for weeks he’d felt a gulf between them, widening with each passing day. But since the funeral the natural order had been restored, the gravitational force of their friendship keeping them close. Which was well and good. The four of them had kept tightly knit since Toki’s disappearance and the effort of concealing how rattled the whole affair made him was exhausting.  
  
“Skwisgaar still at it?” Nathan asked after a while. Pickles groaned.  
  
“Gahd, yes. Douchebeeg will _naht_ shaddup about tha heat death of tha universe. It’s like, _we get it_. You’re sad, and space is terrifyin’. Give it a rest already.”  
  
Nathan drained his drink and cracked open another. “He’s been insufferable, right?”  
  
“No kiddin’. Dood’s a mess. Ever since–” he stalled, and he and Nathan shared an uneasy look. They had yet to give a name to the event that brought their fivesome down to a quartet. It was easier to simply call it, “that thing.” Even better, not discuss it at all. Pickles rolled his shoulders as he took another swig. “Anyway. It’s been’a week. Get over it, ya know?”  
  
“Yeah. We’re all dealing with it fine. Murderface is fine, I assume. You and I are fine. What’s his problem?”  
  
“Gatta make everythin’ about him, that’s what. Gatta make his sadness **omnipresent** or some shit.”  
  
“I know! Why do I have to be crushed under the weight of your sadness? Carry your own load, asshole.”  
  
“Exactly!”  
  
Nathan rolled a bottle cap along the ridge between his thumb and index finger.  
  
“I guess the two of them had a weird, codependent…thing…going on…”  
  
“Nate…”  
  
“I can see how that might–”  
  
“Nathan.”  
  
“Make separation difficult.”  
  
“Might wanna walk that back. Yer startin’ ta sound a _touch_ sympathetic.”  
  
“You’re right, you’re right. Fuck that mopey motherfucker.”  
  
“Fuck! That! Guy!” Pickles cheered. He toasted, clanking the neck of his bottle against Nathan’s. They were silent. The edges of the cap tread tracks into the meaty skin of Nathan’s palm. He looked at Pickles. Like, really looked at him. Like, maybe this was the first time he was seeing Pickles. Actually seeing him. He knocked his foot into Pickles’s ankle.  
  
“Hey.”  
  
“Wha?”  
  
He tapped his toes into the arch of Pickles’s foot in quick succession. “ **Hey.** ”  
  
“Nate, I’m listenin’, _what_?”  
  
“Let me say words.”  
  
“Okay, fine, go ‘head.”  
  
“I want to say words, at and about you.”  
  
“Who’s stoppin’ ya? Go, do it.”  
  
“I’m gonna!”  
  
“Then go! Do it already!”  
  
“ _Shut your dumb Irish mouth and let me talk, you stupid hayseed_.”  
  
“ ** _What the fuck_**."  
  
“Sorry, sorry. That came out stronger than intended.” He sighed. “Okay. It’s not that I’m not broken up about whats-his-nuts. I think it’s fair to say no one is _content_ with this situation. But. I don’t know what I would do. If it were you, instead.”  
  
Pickles glanced at him, his mouth still around the bottle.  
  
“I’m not saying I’d be like _Skwisgaar_ , wailing lamentations into the night or some bullshit. But this shitty circumstance would be infinitely more shitty if I didn’t have you here with me. Okay I’m done.”  
  
He gripped the bottle cap so tightly he thought it might pass through his skin and enter his bloodstream. In his periphery, he saw Pickles’s eyes growing watery.  
  
“Bro, don’t make it weird.”  
  
“I’m _naht_ ,” he croaked. He cleared his throat, the sound starting low and revving up into a brief, guttural shout. “I’m naht makin’ it weird. Yer makin’ it weird, ya weirdo. **Gahhhhhd**.”  
  
A beat. Pickles swiped at the corner of each eye with his thumb and rubbed it against his jeans.  
  
“Same, though,” he said quietly.  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Yeeah. If it was you? Fuck. I dunno. I don’t like ta think about it.”  
  
“Me neither.”  
  
“Good thing we don’t hafta, huh?”  
  
“Yup.”  
  
Pickles nudged aside the array of bottles and scooted closer. Their legs touched. Nathan clamped a hand down on Pickles’s knee and squeezed, once.  
  
After a moment, Pickles coughed and leapt to his feet.  
  
“Ya wanna go huff some paint?”  
  
“Yes. Yes. Let’s go. Do that. Now.”


	30. Hey Bulldog, The Beatles [Skwisgaar/Toki]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things with the band are getting rough. Skwisgaar shows Toki his favorite stress reliever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Tumblr prompt fill for "Help." I just want Skwisgaar to have all the dogs. Has he not earned that? Probably not but I want him to have it anyway.

_Some kind of solitude is measured out in you. You think you know me but you haven't got a clue._   


  
“Just to be clears,” Skwisgaar said as their town car reached its destination, “if you tells anybodies abouts dis, I will kills you for real.”

  
Toki checked his reflection in the tinted window and adjusted his kitty-cat baseball cap. Things with the band had been on shaky ground the past few weeks. The old album had been destroyed, and with the deadline for the new one fast approaching, tension was mounting. Skwisgaar wouldn’t say anything about where he was taking him to; only that it was an outlet. The car door opened, and outside was a cheery, well-tended park, blossoming and green. A high silver fence hemmed in a dusty activity area, spotted with colorful ramps, rubbery chew toys, wooden obstacles to leap over and through. Everything far too small to be used for either him or Skwisgaar. Playful yips and barks filled the air.    
  
“Denise mights gives you shits, she always does,” Skwisgaar unlatched the gate and entered. “She amn’ts worf de efforts. If she asks where your dog ams just points to de other ends of de park. Pfft. Denise.”   
  
Dogs. So many dogs. Labradors, pugs, boxers, huskies, greyhounds, St. Bernards, corgis, pointers. All so energetic, so happy to be there. The moment Skwisgaar stepped inside, every single dogs’ head snapped in his direction. Every single tail, tufted and stubby and fluffy and wiry, wagged with frenetic excitement. And all at once, they charged.    
  
Skwisgaar was on his knees, arms open to receive the bounding hoard. The force knocked him onto his back, the animals swirling in a furry mass over and around his body, licking his face, nipping at his clothes, clamoring for attention.    
  
“Aaaaaaaaaaa, helps! Ams beingk attacked!” Skwisgaar laughed. A golden retriever laid its head on Skwisgaar’s chest, and he scratched at its ears. “So many ferocious beasts!”   
  
As long as Toki had known him, Skwisgaar had been meticulous, dare say obsessive about his hygiene and appearance. Yet here he was, rolling in the dirt, allowing himself to be covered in slobber and hair with boundless enthusiasm. Toki wondered what other pieces of himself Skwisgaar kept tucked away from the world. It was nice, to be on the shortlist of people he revealed himself to.   
  
Toki crouched beside him. “Does you comes here a lots?”   
  
Upright again, Skwisgaar rubbed the belly of a yelping pomeranian.    
  
“Whens I gets stressed out. Cames here a lots whens you was ons your,” he leveled Toki with a look, “ _ book tours _ .”   
  
Toki grimaced. A chubby bulldog ambled to Toki, examined him, then plopped down on his boot, glancing back expectantly.    
  
“Ah, Annette ams a very discoirning individuals,” Skwisgaar said. “A lady of fine tastes.”   
  
Toki scratched beneath its chin, and others gathered, sniffing curiously before demanding to be played with. Toki felt the least stressed he’d been all week. Relaxed, even. Good. He grinned at Skwisgaar, but his expression was serious.   
  
“I don’ts knows whats goingks to happen wif de bands.” He paused.  A labradoodle placed a paw on his thigh. “Or, wif us. Buts. I knows. Dere...are dogs.”   
  
“Ja.” Toki agreed, scooching closer so their hips touched. “Dere are dogs.”   



	31. Raised by Wolves, Voxtrot [General, Dethklok]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skwisgaar gets a visit from some old friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's how this dumb thing came to be. I visited a wolf sanctuary and learned a ton of cool #wolf #facts INCLUDING! Wolves are social and empathetic creatures who will take in abandoned pups and raise them as their own. So I threw out this goofy theory on Tumblr that the wolves chasing Skwisgaar in Fatherklok weren't trying to hurt him, but wanted to take him in because they thought he was a stray. They just wanted to love their weird tall hairless son!!! Which brings us here, now.

_I remember, you were reckless, you were hungry. You were real, you were so uptight._  
  


A resounding gong echoed throughout the halls of Mordhaus, catching the attention of the five members of Dethklok lounging in the living room.

“I didn’t know we were expecting company,” Nathan said.

“I didn’t know we hadda  _doorbell_ ,” Pickles replied, setting aside his cocktail.

A klokateer pushed open the massive ornate double doors at the room's entrance. In the hall behind him lingered a shifting, stout shadow.

“Apologies for the disturbance, my lords. Master Skwigelf, your family has arrived for a visit.”

“Schevetta’sch here?” Murderface brightened, licking his palm to smooth down his flyaways. “Schkwishgaar, buddy, pal, why didn’t you menschun that? I would have zazzed myschelf up! A lady like that isch descherving of a world of zazz—“

“Nots my  _moms_ ,” Skwisgaar snapped, but as his guests entered his expression softened, his eyes growing misty. “My  _family_.”

Trailing the klokateer with light, measured steps was a pack of wolves. Unlike the mangy, almost feral yard wolves, this pack was regal, dignified, glistening white fur coats and piercing amber eyes. But upon spotting Skwisgaar, all that refinement vanished. Fluffy tails began wagging wildly, and they galloped toward him with violent enthusiasm, knocking over the klokateer in their stampede. Skwisgaar leapt off the couch to greet them halfway, dropping on the floor and allowing himself to be overtaken by the swirling, howling, excited hoard.

“Hey, Pickles,” Nathan muttered, elbowing Pickles in the ribs. “Who let the dogs  _in_?”

Pickles watched the scene in confused silence.

“I said, who let the dogs _in_?”

“Yeeah, I heard ya.”

“It’s like who let the dogs  _out_.”

“I gaht it, Nate.”

“But, the opposite, because we’re inside. Ha ha. Yeah. Anyway I would  _love_  if someone would explain what the hell is going on.”

“Dat ams de wolf pack whats raised Skwisgaar,” Toki chirped, not bothering to look up from the mobile game on his phone.

Three cracked open faces whirled on Toki.

“What?” Nathan said finally. “That’s crazy, Skwisgaar wasn’t raised by wolves.”

“Ja, he was!” Toki pointed to Skwisgaar, splayed out beneath five or six wolves vying to lick his face. “ _Dose_ wolves!”

“Thisch isch nutsch, why haschn’t he ever talked about thisch?”

“He talks abouts it alls de times!” Toki huffed, closing his game and thumping something into a search bar. “Dey even mades dat Dethtime movie abouts it starring Alexander Skarsgård!”

He flipped his phone around to display a video for the trailer of  _WHERE THE RIFF-ER RUNS: THE SKWISGAAR SKWIGELF STORY._ A poised man rippling with muscles stood shirtless on a snowy cliffside, the tendrils of his bad wig lifting majestically in the wind, encircled by enormous, poorly CGIed creatures.

**_“I louve you, woulves.”_ **

“We shoulda known this,” Pickles shook his head slightly, dumbstruck. “How did we naht know this?”

“Toki t’inks de problems ams you amn’ts very active listeners! It’s like I says in band therapy last weeks—“

“Schut up, Toki.”

The gears started turning in Nathan’s head. “How did all these wolves board an airplane?”

“Dood, how did alla these wolves  _purchase airfare_?”

“I took care of the arrangements,” said Charles, appearing suddenly at Nathan’s side. Nathan eyed him warily.

“ _Where did you come from._ ”

“Skwisgaar’s family expressed interest in visiting, so I put together their accommodations.”

A beat of silence hung. Then Pickles let out a whiney like a malcontent horse, clutching his temples between the heels of his hands.

“That just raises  _MORE_ questions! I gahtta, I gahtta talk ta some rum about this…”

One of the wolves nosed up Skwisgaar’s shirt and nipped at his visible ribs, exhaled an annoyed chuff.

“Ja I ams eatings enough!” Skwisgaar whined. “It amn’ts my faults de gods granted mes wif dis svelte physique!”

Another took his wrist gently in his mouth and tugged, while a third snuck behind him to nudge him up and guide him to his feet.

“Fines, fines we goes eats! But I amn’ts eating raw deers agains, it hoirts my stomachs.”

The room was quiet again once the group departed. Nathan cleared his throat.

“So we’re all just going to accept that happened.”

“Yep!” Pickles cried, and upended a bottle of Malibu into his mouth.


	32. Who Knows Where the Time Goes by Judy Collins [Skwisgaar/Toki]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A trip to the mountains reminds Skwisgaar of home, for better and for worse.

_But I will still be here, I have no thought of leaving. I do not count the time._

  
  
Twilight descended over the mountains, casting the snowy peaks in a dreamy bluish glow. Distant chair lifts floated lazily across the darkening sky. A handful of intrepid skiers cut tracks along the slopes below, Nathan, Pickles and Murderface among them. Skwisgaar surveyed the scene from their cabin–though “cabin” was perhaps too meek a word to describe the 10,000 square-foot palace sculpted directly into the mountaintop. The outdoor patio, enclosed in a glass dome, jutted far out into space, and as he lounged in the hot tub, alone and more than a little drunk, Skwisgaar felt like he was flying. He imagined the foamy bubbles lapping at his chest to be wisps of clouds.   
  
He hadn’t anticipated company, least of all Toki, always the last to return from these physical excursions. The water shifted as Toki entered but he said nothing, helping himself to a bottle of Grey Goose from the cooler bobbing on the opposite end of the tub. Overhead stars poked through the black canopy of the night sky. The hum of the jets was the only sound between them. The icy expanse surrounding them filled Skwisgaar with an empty sense of familiarity. As though he were missing an unknown, essential piece of himself, and ached at the absense.   
  
After a while, Toki asked if he missed it.

“No.” Then, a pause, a swig from his bottle of rum. Swallow. Grimace. “Ja. Bofs, ats de same times.”  
  
Toki tipped his head all the way back, then tilted down until his chin touched his sternum. “I shoulds miss it mores dan I does.”  
  
Skwisgaar hummed in agreement. He never questioned whether Toki understood this. To be between lands. Always at sea, never on solid ground. He knew he got it, from the moment they met.   
  
“Cans I tells you somet’ings I been t’inkings about?”  
  
Skwisgaar didn’t respond. He knew Toki would tell him either way.  
  
“I t’inks home don’ts gots to be a place you’re froms.” The water about them sloshed as Toki slid in closer. I t’inks it cans be somet’ings else.”  
  
“Oh ja? Likes what?”  
  
Beneath the frothy surface, Toki’s knee grazed Skwisgaar’s thigh.

“I t’inks it cans bes…a feelings.”  
  
Skwisgaar rolled his eyes.  
  
“Pfft, dat’s dumb. How you gonna lives un-sides of a feelings? Eh? How you gonna–”  
  
He stopped short as a brief, certain kiss pressed to the corner of his mouth.  
  
He turned to him, slowly.   
  
“Why you does dat?”  
  
Toki raised one shoulder, held it aloft for a moment, then dropped it.   
  
“Felts likes it.” Toki’s gaze was soupy with inebriation, but unwavering. “Ams you mads?”  
  
He wasn’t mad. He didn’t know what he was. The emptiness had been filled with something else, something he could not identify. Something he did not want to lose. He didn’t know why he kissed him back. Just felt like something he needed to do.

Toki whispered against his mouth  _what do you want_  and Skwisgaar didn’t have a response, at least not something he could articulate in something as feeble as language. He kissed him again, deeper, hoping he’d find the answer.


	33. Yeah!, Usher feat. Lil Jon and Ludacris [Pickles/Murderface]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: When one stops the kiss to whisper “I’m sorry, are you sure you-” and they answer by kissing them more.

_Cause I don't know, if I take that chance, just where's it gonna lead?_  
  


  
Pressure pulsed against the back of Murderface’s eyelids. Lying flat on his back did little to alleviate the spins, the room wobbling as though he were prone on the deck of a ship. Drinking with Pickles was a bad idea, and going shot for shot was a worse one. Pickles sat cross-legged at his hip, his drunken giddiness leaking from him in sporadic giggles. Nausea rose in Murderface like a moon. He filled his lungs, struck out for some kind, any kind of distraction.  
  
“Hey,” he slurred. “What’sch that one schong, by Uscher?”  
  
Pickles blew out a short, quick breath from his nostrils. “Yeeah.”  
  
“The one that came out around 2004.”  
  
“Yeeah.”  
  
“The one with Lil Jon and Ludacrisch.”  
  
“Yeeah!”  
  
“The one about making your booty go.” He clapped.  
  
“Yeeah!”  
  
“I’m aschking a schimple fucking questshun Picklesch, no need to be scho _obschtinate_.”  
  
Pickles was keening, folding himself over his legs so his forehead nearly grazed the carpet.  
  
“No ya fuckin’…idiot musk ox. Yeeah! is tha name’a tha song ya doochebeeg!”  
  
Giggles overtook him and he crumpled like a pastry. He sprawled languid and contented as a cat in sunlight, his hot breath weaving through the thin fabric of Murderface’s t-shirt. His wheezy, erratic laughter vibrated in the sparse space between them. The slimy scent of a body three-days without wash wafted through Murderface’s nostrils. His head rolled aside, and he opened his eyes. Pickles was close. So close. Close enough Murderface could see the crush of freckles across Pickles skin, eroded bits of clam shells smattered across a soft expanse of white sand. He cracked open one eye, electric emerald through a spread of whispy red eyelashes. A smile split his face, a lightning rod.  
  
“Hey,” he murmured.  
  
Murderface watched his lips, widening and slacking as he laughed, teeth a pearly grey, tongue rolling over the bottom row playful and pink. The magnetism was undeniable. Pickles’s one-eyed glance was a challenge, a dare, at least that’s what Murderface told himself as he pushed his numb mouth against his, mashing and desperate. Pickles didn’t react, not at first, barely acknowledged Murderface’s action, still lost in the same glassy, wall-eyed glaze, unresponsive as panic coursed through Murderface’s veins swift as a current.  
  
“I’m schorry,” he muttered. “That waschn’t–I’m not–You don’t–”  
  
When Pickles kissed back he didn’t do so with his body. He merely tilted his head for a better angle, hands untouching, folding across his own torso. The kiss was not without passion. Murderface thought of the first time he’d been smoked out, how it felt as though his flesh and muscles and bones melted into oblivion. His lower lip caught between Pickles’s mollusk teeth. Murderface knew this was a moment to be forgotten, to be thrown out, inadmissible in the court of their friendship. Yet he savored every second. Let it linger. Allowed it to seep into his memory. Wanted to remember what it meant to feel wanted.  
  
Pickles broke and laughed again, soundless and breathy, flowing down Murderface’s throat and taking root in his stomach.  
  
“Ha ha,” he tittered, “tha name’a the song was Yeah!”


	34. Valentine, Fiona Apple [Nathan/Pickles]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: A hoarse whisper “kiss me.”

_I'm amorous but out of reach. A still life drawing of a peach.  
_

  
Their Friender Bender ended, as so many had before it, with the pair of them pissing from the top of an international landmark. To be more specific it was Stonehenge, and only Nathan was doing the pissing at the moment. His sparkling arc glimmered against the creamy clouds, pinkening with the setting sun. The air carried a chill, a portend of the coming winter. Pickles lounged at his side, pants still unbuttoned, the hem of his shirt nudged up to reveal his pale, paunchy belly.  A mostly-empty bottle of whiskey rolled off his fingertips and toward the edge, but before it tumbled to the grassy knoll below Nathan caught it in the arch of his foot. Steadying the bottle as though he were preparing for a penalty shot, he swung back and kicked the thing into the creeping darkness.  
  
Pickles howled with hyena-like laughter, shrieking, inconsolable. But as abrupt as it started, it cut out. He regarded Nathan with surprising thoughtfulness.  
  
“‘Ey. Nate.”  
  
Shaking out and tucking himself away, Nathan sat. “Mgruh?”  
  
“Lemme-Can y’like, do me’a sahlid?”  
  
He’d thrown up three times already, voice torn apart from the effort. Nathan scanned for the bottle along the rollicking hills. He shrugged.   
  
Beside him he heard a quick suck of breath, and then a quiet, urgent, “Kiss me.”  
  
The liquor had clobbered his senses. Only now did he feel the gentle fingertips laid on the back of his wrist, saw how the distance between their bodies had grown short. Nathan should have seen this coming. This was not the first time this request was made, and would likely not be the last.   
  
“How drunk are you?” he asked.  
  
Now it was Pickles’s turn to shrug. “That depends.”  
  
“Depends on what?”  
  
Pickles closed one eye lazily and pointed at Nathan with two fingers, a horizontal V.  
  
“Depends on which one’a ya’s askin’ _eeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyy_.” He waggled an invisible cigar. “YA DA **DA** DUH DA **DA**.”  
  
“Well you only go full-vaudeville when you’re black-out, so I guess I have my answer.”  
  
The touch at his wrist tightened intensely.  
  
“I would’a asked if I was sober,” he said.  
  
Nathan looked past his shoulder. “You’re never sober.”  
  
“Yeeah, well, _yer_ never…” he trailed off. His grip loosened, and silence lofted between them like mustard gas. Nathan patted his own mouth with his thumb, the numb of the booze lending his lips a sense of fullness. He stared at the back of Pickle’s head, dreds wafting like tendrils in the faint breeze. Nathan turned his hand over and pressed his meaty palm to Pickles’s.  
  
“Ask me again tomorrow.”


	35. Taxman, The Beatles [Nathan/Charles]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Routine kisses where the other person presents their cheek/forehead for the hello/goodbye kiss without even looking up from what they’re doing.

  
_And you're working for no one but me._

  
  
Nathan twirled the ballpoint pen in his fingers and exhaled with exorbitant, unnecessary effort.  
  
“Charles I’m bored. I’m so bored. Why didn’t you tell me doing your taxes was so boring?”  
  
“I did. Many times.”  
  
Nathan sighed again, this time louder, slouching deeper into the chair on the opposite end of Charles desk. If Charles noticed he made no indication of it, his focus centered on the mountainous piles of paperwork before him. Though he worked with efficiency (utilizing a no doubt complicated system Nathan did not even attempt to understand), it seemed to make little impact. Hours had passed and the stacks of files were at the same height and thickness as when Nathan arrived.   
  
“Can we do something else?”  
  
Charles signed one document, pounded it twice with a comically large stamp, set it aside and began scribbling on another sheet.  
  
“You are more than welcome to leave.”   
  
Nathan pouted. “Yeah, you’d like that, wouldn’t you.”  
  
“I have no feelings on the matter either way.”  
  
Nathan stormed to his feet in a huff.  
  
“Fine, maybe I’ll just go then!”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
Nathan pivoted slightly, but remained rooted to his spot.  
  
“I’m leaving!”  
  
“Very well.”  
  
“Leaving your office, now.”  
  
“See you later.”  
  
“Maybe you _won’t_.”  
  
“That is also acceptable.”  
  
“Good ** _bye._** ”  
  
“Toodaloo.”  
  
Without lifting his eyes or altering his pace, Charles tipped his cheek in Nathan’s direction, an action meant to signify the end of the conversation that infuriated Nathan. Who did he think he was, his mom? Gross. No. He twisted his feet in the soft carpet and set his mouth. Padding alongside the desk, he came up on Charles’s left and dropped his hand, his splayed fingers finally, _finally_ stopping Charles’s meticulous scrawling.   
  
“Hey.” Nathan intoned. The papers shifted beneath his palm, creeping slightly toward the edge.   
  
“I thought you were leaving.”  
  
“Heeeeeeeeeee _eeeeeeeeeeeyyyyyy_.”   
  
Charles’s gaze ticked up over the rims of his glasses.   
  
“Y…You like…taxes…?”  
  
“I like not being harrassed by the United States government, yes.”  
  
“Yeah, well.”  
  
Nathan slide his hand across the desktop, the papers and files and documents nudging at a glacial pace. He pressed his hip to the corner as he created space for himself and laid his other hand down for leverage.  
  
“You can’t– ** _hyup_** –why don’t you– ** _hyup_** –how about– ** _hyup_** geez this desk his higher than I thought **_hyuuuuuuuuup_** –”   
  
The stacks of papers toppled to the floor in a fluttery cluster as Nathan hoisted himself up, laying out on the desktop like a platter of hors d'oeuvres. With one hand he made a fist and propped it under his chin; with the other he reached forward and fingered the tail of Charles’s tie. Charles leaned forward into the slight tug.  
  
“You can’t put a tax on _this_.”  
  
The kiss, like so many of their kisses, was languid, relaxed. It was in these small, intimate moments when Nathan felt closest to Charles. When the curtains dropped away and he saw him. Charles, unencumbered. Charles broke first, swollen lower lip pinched between his teeth, a bitten-down smile.  
  
“What?” Nathan asked.  
  
The corners of Charles’s lips flicked upward bashfully.  
  
“It…all of that paperwork was in a specific order, and it’s really going to bother me if I don’t fix it.”  
  
“Oh my **God** you’re such a dweeb,” Nathan groaned, slumping off the desk and crouching to gather the papers.  
 **  
**


	36. Blow, Beyonce [Skwisgaar/Toki]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Toki and Skwisgaar go on a roller rink date.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please know this is only named after Blow because[the music video takes place in a roller rink.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIELYkfoKy8) Wowee is that song filthy, damn Bey.

_Don't worry, it's nothing major._

  
Toki rounded the curve to complete his third lap, feet grapevining over one another in expert crossovers, wind sweeping back his hair as he picked up speed. He glided across the wood-paneled floor with the grace of a swan slicing across a clear, crystal lake. He spun with a flourish, showing off, before executing a perfect toe stop right in front of Skwisgaar, bow-legged, still clinging to the wall at the rink’s entrance.  
  
“You gonna has to lets go some times,” he said.  
  
“ _No I don’ts._ ” His knees buckled like the legs of a newborn fawn. “Maybe dis ams whats I  _wants_  to be doings. Maybe I ams inventing a  _new ways_  of roll-her-skate-engs. Maybe you’s just trying to  _gets in de ways of progress_.”  
  
Toki outstretched his arms, palms up, as he squelched a smirk.  
  
“Lets me helps you.”  
  
Skwisgaar pushed himself up to full height, locked his legs, and promptly slid into a gargolyic hunch. Teeth gritted and white knuckled, he shook his head  _no_.  
  
“Come ons,” Toki said, wiggling his fingers. “Don’ts you trust me?”  
  
“Absolutely nots.”  
  
“Too bads.”  
  
He snatched Skwisgaar’s wrists, dislodging his vice-like hold on the wall, and tugged him onto the floor, skating backwards as he held Skwisgaar’s clawed fingers. Skwisgaar was straight-legged, terrified. He passively allowed himself to be dragged, not because he  _enjoyed_  it, but because the alternative was a cracked tailbone, or a shoddily-shot YouTube video that would meme his dignity into oblivion.  
  
“ _Toki I don’t likes dis takes me back.”  
_  
“Don’ts be such a baby.” He twirled to his side, wresting one hand free and slipping it around Skwisgaar’s waist. “Bends your knees. If you keeps dem straights like dats you gonna falls.”  
  
Skwisgaar was not one for accepting help, or for indulging Toki’s thirst for public displays for affection, but in this moment inhibitions evaporated for the sake of self preservation. He snaked his arm behind his back for extra security, hands knotted in Toki’s shirt. He took Toki’s advice without complaint or resistance. He shifted one foot out, then the other, the first again, in a stiff, awkward gait. Eventually his confidence grew, his stride elongated. His grip on Toki slackened, but did not drop. Overhead, the bright yellow and orange lights that had been a mainstain all night dimmed. A spray of ovular shapes drifted across the floor and walls as soft purple and blue light fractured against the lazily spinning disco ball at the ceiling’s center. The music slowed. Skaters coupled off. Toki grinned.  
  
“See? I  _tolds_  you dis woulds be  _nice_.”  
  
Skwisgaar rolled his eyes and scoffed.  
  
“Pffts. If you  _likes_  dat sort of t’ings.”  
  
“I does!” He dragged his thumb along Skwisgaar’s hip bone. “Don’t yous?”  
  
Skwisgaar looked askance, working the fabric of Toki’s shirts deftly through his fingers.  
  
“It ain’ts de worst t’ings.”  
  
Toki’s grin widened. He unwound his arm from Skwisgaar’s waist.  
  
“You seems to gots de hangs of it. You don’ts gots to holds onto mes if you don’ts–”  
  
When he moved to depart, Skwisgaar’s grasp tightened. His lower lip slipped behind his teeth. The moment lengthened. Finally, Skwisgaar released, his hand skimming down Toki’s forearm before finding purchase within his palm.  
  
“Dis,” he conceded, fitting his fingers into Toki’s, “amn’ts de  _worst_  t’ings.”


	37. Drew Barrymore, SZA [Pickles/Murderface]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Murderface tries to recreate a moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [We got us a sequel!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8745925/chapters/33201756) This one is......sadder.......

_Why's it so hard to accept the party is over?_

  
  
Murderface knew attempting to recreate the moment was a sisyphean endeavor. But that didn’t stop him from trying.

He often found himself awake deep into the night, drunk, buoyed by an unearned and undeserved optimism as he watched Pickles shrug off the mewling affections of plump-lipped, big-titted groupies. He sat closer than required, and felt a surge of victory with each incidental contact. The brush of jeans against his bare ankle. The graze of fingertips with the pass of a joint or a beer. The arm lopped sloppily across his shoulders; the brief, conspiratorial squeeze before his hand slid down his back and up the milky thigh of a preening slut. In the wake of that  _moment_ , that  _kiss_ , everything was magnified, stretched taffy-like into significance, malleable enough for Murderface to reshape them, sculpt the moment again. A new moment. A better one. A sustainable one.

Opportunity arose when Pickles did, standing from the couch and migrating to the kitchen for more liquor. After an appropriate, inconspicuous amount of time passed, Murderface followed.

“Scho,” he said, leaning crookedly against the door frame, clenched fists buried in his armpits, “we never talked about. You know. What happened. The other night.”

Pickles turned to face him, arms loaded down with bottles.

“Which night?”

“ _You know.”_

Pickles blinked blankly, his blown-out gaze empty.

“Th–You  _know_!” Murderface’s heartrate pitched up. “The guysch were lame ashholsche and went to bed at like  _three_  like a bunch of nunsch. And you and me played Schmasch Brothersch for a while, and hung out, in your room–”

“Oh!”

He smiled, his teeth like a crescent moon, and Murderface could  _feel it_ , his  _moment_ , galloping toward him open-armed and euphoric and triumphant–

“Yeeah, dood, sahrry, I was totally blackout that night, heh.”

The moment dropped dead, rotted, disintegrated into the Earth, was forgotten.

“Why, did I do somethin’ bad?”

Murderface hoped for a faulty link in the chandelier above to snap, for the structure to crash onto him in an explosion of glass and blood and steel, killing him instantly. But he’d learned not to put much stock in hope.

“Uh,  _yeah_ , you  _fucking puked_  right in my cargo schorts, you dick!”

Pickles laughed, maneuvering around Murderface’s form and shuffling his wares to fit in the crook of one arm.

“Hey, tellya what. I’ll take ya on a Target run tomahrrow and I’ll buy ya all tha $15 cargo shorts ya want. Sound good?”

With his free hand he made a fist and gave Murderface’s chest a gentle tap with his knuckles. Despite the light touch, Murderface felt all the wind, and all the optimism, go right out of him.

“Schure, pal,” he choked. “Schoundsh good.”


	38. Carry That Weight by The Beatles [Skwisgaar/Toki]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Road life is rough for Skwisgaar. Toki tries to keep him in check.

_And in the middle of the celebrations, I break down._   
  


  
It came in waves, but it was worst on the road.

Toki was keyed in to Skwisgaar’s downshifts. When the air surrounding him churned to an opaque fog. When he was slower to get up in the mornings, quicker to vanish after gigs. When his smile became a clean, empty upturned line. Toki granted him space, but with an invisible tether, ready to yank him back if he wandered too far.

For the most part, Skwisgaar’s performance was unaffected by these spells. Every night he put on a show, hit his marks, slid into the persona of Unimpeachable Rock God as though it were a perfectly tailored jacket. But then he skipped a sound check in Berlin–an unheard of change in routine–and it was time for Toki to intervene. He wasn’t in the hotel, or any nearby bars, or with the ancient groupies who’d been hovering like desperate, horny gadflies ever since the band rolled into town. Instead, Toki found him on the tour bus, in the sleeping quarters used for napping off hangovers on long stretches of road. He was curled into the lowest bunk, facing the wall, a shuddering black mass. Before approaching, Toki folded his arm behind his back and put his weight into the door, carefully clicking the lock shut with his thumb. 

“Cans I stays with you?”

He always phrased it this way, as though Skwisgaar was doing him a courtesy, extending an invitation to something exclusive and private. The absence of a  _no_ was accepted as a  _yes_ , and Toki sat at his hip, combed out the clusters of blond knots with the tips of his fingers. It was calm, for a moment, soundless but for the hum of the bus’s air conditioning. But the stillness snapped, and Toki heard the delicate string of shallow breaths Skwisgaar took when he was crying and wanted to sound like he was not crying.

“Bad days?” Toki asked.

A clench, an embarrassed wheeze. Toki needed to be selective about his affections in these moments–too much or too little could push Skwisgaar deeper into himself. He scooted closer, rubbing his knuckles between his shoulder blades, cautious but assuring.

“Maybe tomorrow won’ts be worse.”

Toki felt him swallow, heard him exhale like it had been a 40 pound weight sitting in his chest.

“ _Maybes_ ,” he replied, and Toki said nothing else, hopeful that maybe, possibly, it would be.


	39. Have to Explode by The Mountain Goats [Nathan/Magnus]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tactical error.

_I speak in smoke signals and you answer in code._

  
It wasn’t just the soupy humidity of the late July Florida night. The air had shifted between them, power teetering, perhaps irrevocably, into an uneasy imbalance. The rain-slick parking lot was an oily mirror for the flickering streetlights overhead. Somewhere in the distance, the pop of shots. A scream. A siren. Then nothing.  
  
Nathan loaded the last of the equipment into the van. Magnus did not assist, one foot hitched on the bumper, taking drags from a cigarette he’d already smoked down to the filter. His eyes were like the eyes of cathedral statues; blank, yet coveting, pleading with Nathan to surrender something he was unwilling and unable to give.  
  
“You don’t have to say it back,” Magnus said.   
  
The van’s back door closed with a somber  _click_. He tossed Magnus the keyring, which bounced off his bare chest and into the grimy asphalt. It was a long ride home, and Nathan would rather it be a quiet one.  
  
“I wasn’t going to,” he replied.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Here in this Room, this Narrow Room](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12273717) by [Calliopinot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calliopinot/pseuds/Calliopinot)




End file.
